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 TWO INAUGURAL LECTURES 
 
 READ IN 
 
 THE DIVINITY SCHOOL, OXFOBD, 
 
 IN 
 
 MICHAELMAS TEEM, 1878, 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM INOE, D.D. 
 
 REGIUS PROFESSOR OF DIVINITY, AND CANON OF CHRIST CHURCH J 
 LATE SUB-RECTOR AND TUTOR OF EXETER COLLEGE. 
 
 From the Author, 
 
 ®%Uxb antr Itettunt: 
 
 JAMES PARKER AND CO. 
 
 1878.
 
 REGIUS PROFESSORS OF DIVINITY AT OXFORD. 
 
 1535 Richard Smyth, D.D, Fellow of Merton, Principal of Alban Hall. 
 1548 Peter Martyr, D.D., of the University of Padua, Ch. Ch. 
 1554 Richard Smyth, D.D., again. 
 1556 Joannes Fraterculus, D.D. (a Spaniard), Lincoln. 
 
 1559 Richard Smyth, D.D, again. 
 
 1560 Laurence Humphrey, B.D., Fellow, afterwards President, of Magdalen. 
 1589 Thomas Holland, D.D., Fellow of Balliol, Rector of Exeter. 
 
 1612 Robert Abbot, D.D., Master of Balliol, Bishop of Salisbury. 
 16 L5 John Prideaux, D.D., Rector of Exeter, Bishop of Worcester. 
 1642 Robert Sanderson, D.J)., Fellow of Lincoln. 
 1648*Robert Crosse, D.D., Fellow of Lincoln. 
 1648* Joshua Hoyle, D.D, Master of University. 
 1654* John Conaut, D.D., Rector of Exeter. 
 
 1660 Robert Sanderson, D.D., again ; soon after Bishop of Lincoln. 
 
 1661 William Creed, D.D, Fellow of St. John's. 
 
 1663 Richard Allestree, D.D., Ch. Ch., Provost of Eton College. 
 
 1680 William Jane, D.D., Ch. Ch., Dean of Gloucester. 
 
 1707 John Potter, D.D, Fellow of Lincoln, Bishop of Oxford, Archbishop 
 of Canterbury. 
 
 1737 George Rye, D.D, Fellow of Oriel. 
 
 1741 John Fanshaw, D. D., Student of Ch. Ch., and Regius Professor of 
 Greek, which he resigned. 
 
 1763 Edward Bentham, D.D, Fellow of Oriel, Prebendary of Hereford. 
 
 1776 Benjamin Wheeler, D.D, Fellow of Magdalen. 
 
 1783 John Randolph, D.D., Student of Ch. Ch., Professor of Poetry, and 
 Regius Professor of Greek, both of which he resigned; after- 
 wards Bishop of Oxford, Bangor, London. 
 
 1807 Charles Henry Hall, D.D., Student, afterwards Dean, of Ch. Ch., 
 Dean of Durham. 
 
 1809 William Howley, D.D., Fellow of New College, Bishop of London, 
 Archbishop of Canterbury. 
 
 1813 William Van Mildert, D.D., Commoner of Queen's, Bishop of Llan- 
 daff, Dean of St. Paul's, Bishop of Durham. 
 
 1820 Frodsham Hodson, D.D., Principal of Brasenose. 
 
 1822 Charles Lloyd, D.D, Student of Ch. Ch., Bishop of Oxford. 
 
 1829 Edward Burton, D.D., Student of Ch. Ch. 
 
 1836 Renn Dickson Hampden, D.D, Principal of St. Mary Hall, Bishop 
 of Hereford. 
 
 1848 William Jacobson, M.A, Fellow of Exeter, Vice-Principal of Mag- 
 dalen Hall, Public Orator, D.D, Bishop of Chester. 
 
 1865 Robert Payne Smith, M.A, late Scholar of Pembroke, D.D, Dean 
 of Canterbury. 
 
 1871 James Bowling Mozley, D.D, late Fellow of Magdalen, and Canon 
 of Worcester. 
 
 * Those persons whose names are marked with an asterisk were appointed during the 
 time of the Usurpation.
 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 TN beginning, for the first time, a course of lectures from 
 *- the Chair of Theology, to which, by the favour of the 
 Queen, I have been called, I have thought it would not be 
 uninteresting, by way of introduction, to take a rapid survey 
 of the academical history of some of my most distinguished 
 predecessors. Such a survey may throw light upon the re- 
 lation in which Theology has stood to other branches of 
 knowledge in the studies of the University; it may help us 
 to realize that in dealing with an unchanging subject-matter 
 there is an infinite diversity in the methods of treatment, 
 varying with the intellectual and spiritual life of each suc- 
 cessive generation ; it may supply salutary cautions for the 
 present, in unveiling the errors and extravagancies of the 
 past ; it may awaken attention to the necessity of adapting 
 the kind of instruction now given to the widely-different 
 external circumstances of University life. 
 
 The Regius Professorship of Divinity was first founded by 
 Henry VIII. in 1535, the year after the English nation had 
 renounced the Papal Supremacy ; and re-founded in 1540, 
 in conjunction with four new Regius Professorships, those 
 of Hebrew, Greek, Civil Law, and Medicine, the endowment 
 of which was first charged upon the Dean and Chapter of 
 Westminster, and subsequently, by arrangement, upon the 
 Dean and Chapter of the King's new foundation of Christ 
 Church. The first King's Professor of Divinity was Richard 
 Smyth, who had been elected Fellow of Merton in 1527, 
 Registrar of the University in 1531, Principal of St. Alban 
 Hall in 1535. He was a man strongly addicted to the old 
 learning, a vigorous upholder of all Papal doctrines, both in 
 his lectures and in his published works. His moral cha- 
 racter does not seem to have been spotless; in temper he 
 is described by Strype as " a hot, turbulent man a ," and the 
 a Memorials of Abp. Cranmer, ii. 7. 
 
 b2
 
 4 Past History and Present Duties of 
 
 history of his Oxford career fully confirms that judgment. 
 In the course of his literary life he wrote various treatises 
 against Peter Martyr, Melanchthon, and Calvin, defending 
 the doctrines of the Propitiatory Sacrifice of the Mass, 
 Works of Supererogation, Purgatory, and the co-ordinate 
 authority of unwritten Tradition with Scripture b . The doc- 
 trinal, as distinct from the political Reformation, had been 
 advancing rapidly in the Court as well as in the nation 
 generally, during the latter years of the reign of Henry, 
 and received an enormous impulse upon the accession of 
 Edward VI. to the throne. Archbishop Cranmer endea- 
 voured by persuasion and argument to bring the Oxford 
 Regius Professor more into sympathy with the reformed 
 doctrine, and the result was that Dr. Smyth read a public 
 recantation at Paul's Cross on May 15, 1547, in the fourth 
 month of the new reign, and repeated it at Oxford in the 
 following August. One sentence of it ran as follows, 
 " These things aforesaid, I cannot deny but they were 
 spoken of me, and written. And as I do not now like 
 them, so, at the example of St. Austin and other good 
 doctors, I am not ashamed to retract them, and call them 
 again and condemn them. For when I followed mine own 
 invention, not directed by Scripture, I began, as the nature 
 of man is, to wander, and at the last went clean contrary to 
 God's "Word. Wherefore I heartily exhort every man, as 
 touching matters of faith, to found the same upon God's 
 certain, true, and infallible Word; lest by doing the con- 
 trary, they fall into superstition, idolatry, and other mani- 
 fold errors, as myself and many others have done." 
 
 Richard Smyth was deprived of his Professorship to make 
 
 b There is a rare book in Christ Church Library, bearing date 1546, en- 
 titled, " The Assertion and Defence of the Sacramente of the Aulter. Com- 
 pyled and made by Mayster Richard Smythe, Doctour of Divinitie, and 
 Header of the King's Majesties lesson in his Grace's Universitie of Oxforde, 
 dedicate unto his Highnes, beying the excellent and most worthy defendour 
 of Christes faythe." The author describes it as "the first fructes and workes 
 of me your Grace's most bounden bedesman and chapleine." " It appeared 
 clerely and manifestlye my most bounden dutye (as in very dede it was and 
 is, being your Highnes chapleine, and reader of your Grace's lesson in youre 
 famous and renowned Universitie of Oxforde, to the which lesson by your 
 Grace's onely goodnes I have been heretofore preferred)." 

 
 
 the Faculty of Theology in Oxford. 
 
 way for Peter Martyr. That celebrated and influential 
 Eeformer had been born in Florence in 1500, being the son 
 of Stephen Yermilius, and called Peter Martyr in pursuance 
 of a vow of his parents before his birth. In his boyhood 
 he resolved to become a monk, and joined the Augustinians 
 at Fiesole. He was sent to Padua, where he learned Greek, 
 in order to be able to read and understand Aristotle. He 
 became a public preacher when twenty-six years of age, and 
 attracted much notice at Brescia, Rome, Bologna, Pisa, and 
 Mantua. "Whilst at Bologna he learned Hebrew under the 
 tuition of a Jewish physician. He was made Abbot of 
 Spoleto, and subsequently Rector of St. Peter's College at 
 Naples. There he first began the study of the writings 
 of some of the Reformers, Bucer, Zwingle, and Erasmus ; 
 and by frequent intercourse with a small body of devout 
 men, who had been led by prayerful study to renounce the 
 chief dogmas by which the Papacy had departed from primi- 
 tive truth, he was gradually won over to the Reformed 
 Faith, being in this conversion largely indebted to the in- 
 fluence of a Spaniard, John Yaldez. He began to lecture 
 publicly on the First Epistle to the Corinthians ; but shortly 
 went into Switzerland, and on to Strasburg, where, under 
 the auspices of Martin Bucer, he was made Professor of 
 Sacred Literature, an office which he held for five years. 
 He there married Catharine Dampmartin, or Cathie, an 
 ex-nun. He was invited to England by Cranmer, with 
 the consent of Edward VI., and at the end of November, 
 1548, was nominated Regius Professor. He began his work 
 here by lecturing on the First Epistle to the Corinthians, se- 
 lecting that particular portion of the New Testament, as his 
 biographer tells us, because he thought that many points 
 bearing on the controversies of his own time were discussed 
 in it ; and because the teaching of that Epistle, if well and 
 dexterously handled, would cure all the corruptions of the 
 Church, and refute the abuses and superstitions of the 
 Papists. Martyr's lectures were largely attended, though 
 the Heads of Colleges, who were most of them violently op- 
 posed to the Reformed doctrines, tried to keep their men 
 away. "When the Professor arrived at the exposition of
 
 6 Past History and Present Duties of 
 
 those chapters (x. and xi.) which treat of the Lord's Supper, 
 there was a great commotion excited. His opponents put 
 up notices on all the church-doors in Oxford, that on a given 
 day he was going to dispute against the presence of Christ 
 in the Holy Supper. The Divinity School was naturally 
 crowded both with gownsmen and townsmen on the ap- 
 pointed day. Peter Martyr himself knew nothing of the 
 advertisement : it had been issued by Richard Smyth, his 
 predecessor, Dr. Cole, Warden of New College, and Dr. Ogle- 
 thorpe, President of Magdalen. On his way down to the 
 school, he was met by Smyth's servant, bearing a challenge 
 from his master to a dispute on that day. Martyr delivered 
 his lecture as usual, without betraying any nervousness ; a 
 clamour was raised at the end of it by his opponents, which 
 was only ended by the Vice-Chancellor arranging that Peter 
 Martyr and his opponent Smyth should come with him to his 
 own house, and there settle the place and the terms on which 
 a public disputation should be held. Six Royal Commis- 
 sioners were sent down to be assessors at this theological 
 combat, among whom were Holbeach, Bishop of Lincoln, 
 and Dr. Cox, Dean of Christ Church, and Chancellor of the 
 University. Before the day of disputation arrived, Richard 
 Smyth fled to St. Andrew's, in Scotland, and afterwards to 
 Louvain. But his place was supplied by Dr. Tresham, a 
 Canon of Christ Church, assisted by Chedsey and Morgan. 
 The disputation lasted four days, beginning on May 28, 
 1549, and was subsequently published. Party spirit was 
 hot, and did not refrain from open violence. Fearing as- 
 sassination, Martyr retired for a time to London : on return- 
 ing, his house was frequently stoned by his adversaries, 
 and to relieve him from this danger, the King made him 
 Canon of Christ Church c , where he had, sa}'s his biographer, 
 a splendid house and a pleasant garden. He was formally 
 made a Doctor of Divinity, and was very active in the prose- 
 cution of his work. In 1550, public disputations upon theo- 
 logical subjects were held every alternate week, and the dis- 
 putations in the King's College every week, which, inasmuch 
 
 c Collated October 24, 1550; installed January 20, 15£$. Le Neve, 
 F. ii. 517.
 
 the Faculty of Theology in Oxford. 7 
 
 as all persons were freely admitted to hear them, were vir- 
 tually public, were presided over by Martyr as Moderator d . 
 The fierce controversies of the time did not prove favourable 
 to any calm scientific study of Theology ; and in the latter 
 part of the reign of Edward VI., Oxford seems to have fallen 
 into a deplorable condition 6 . "There were scarcely any 
 resident Masters of Arts : there was not a sufficient number 
 of Divines to perform the statutable exercises. The Divinity 
 School was shut up. The salary of the Margaret Professor 
 was employed in repairing the public buildings. The Uni- 
 versity sermon was preached only once a-month. The Pro- 
 fessors seldom read lectures. The study of Greek had fallen 
 into neglect." The death of Edward VI. and the accession 
 of Mary gave an instant check to the progress of the Refor- 
 mation. The new Queen issued a proclamation against 
 foreigners, commanding them to leave the realm within 
 twenty-four days ; Peter Martyr was forbidden to read his 
 lectures, or to stir a foot out of Oxford. The Council, how- 
 ever, in a short time gave him leave to remove. He went 
 to Lambeth and London, and finally was allowed to depart 
 the kingdom, on the strength of his having been invited 
 originally to England by letters under the Broad Seal of 
 the late King. Returning to Strasburg, he was reinstated 
 in his old place, where he died, November 12, 1562. 
 
 The story of the indignity done to his wife is well known. 
 She had died in Oxford in 1552, and had been buried in 
 Christ Church. By order of Cardinal Pole, when he be- 
 came Chancellor of the University, her body was to be cast 
 out from ecclesiastical sepulture; and the then Dean of Christ 
 Church, Dr. Marshall, commanded Mrs. Martyr to be dis- 
 interred, and buried in the dunghill at his stable-door. 
 Time brought round its revenge. Five 3^ears afterwards 
 (January, 1561), her bones were taken up again, and 
 mingled with the relics of St. Frideswide in the same coffin, 
 and then re-interred, with the epitaph, " Hie jacet religio 
 cum superstitione." 
 
 Richard Smyth returned from Louvain to Oxford as 
 
 d Parker Society, Original Letters, ii. 481. 
 
 e Hook, "Lives of Archbishops of Canterbury," viii. 379.
 
 8 Past History and Present Duties of 
 
 Regius Professor, was made Chaplain to the Queen, and 
 Canon of Christ Church. His recantation was forgotten, 
 and had probably all along been insincere. He was present 
 at the burning of Ridley and Latimer opposite Balliol Col- 
 lege, and preached the sermon on that occasion, when, with 
 exquisite bad taste, he took for his text, " Though I give 
 my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me 
 nothing." For some reason or other he resigned in 1556, 
 when he was succeeded by a Spanish monk, Joannes Frater- 
 culus, or de Villa Garcia, but was restored at the very be- 
 ginning of the reign of Elizabeth. When the new Queen 
 was fully established on her throne, he was again deprived 
 and committed to the custody of Archbishop Parker ; but he 
 contrived without much difficulty to escape, and went to 
 Douai, where he was made first King's Professor of Divinity 
 at the Roman College of St. Peter's, by Philip II. of Spain ; 
 and died, after three years, at the age of sixty-three. There 
 are many conflicting opinions expressed by contemporaries 
 as to the character and capacity of this first occupant of the 
 Chair. Strong language, not abstaining from personality, 
 was used by controversialists on both sides at that time. 
 Therefore, we cannot be surprised at the titles which Smyth 
 gave to some of his books f . But we certainly cannot acquit 
 Smyth of palpable inconstancy, and a violent spirit of par- 
 tisanship, which disqualified him from exercising the calm 
 judgment and argumentative impartiality of a Professor. 
 
 The next occupant of the chair was Laurence Humphrey. 
 He was born at Newport Pagnel, had become a Fellow 
 of Magdalen in 1549, and was ordained in 1552. Having 
 embraced Protestant views, he went into exile during Queen 
 Mary's reign with many of his countrymen, residing at 
 Zurich, where he became intimate with many, who on their 
 return to England, having been enamoured of the simpler 
 ceremonial of the Swiss Reformers, formed the first com- 
 
 1 One is, "Diatribe de hominis justificatione edita Oxonian in Anglia, 
 a.d. 1550. Mense Februario adversus Petrum Martyrem Vermelinum, olini 
 Cartusianum Lucensem in Italia, nunc apostatam in Anglia Oxoniae, acer- 
 rimum improborum dogmatum assertorem, sed imperitum et impudentein 
 cum primis." (Louvanii, 1550.)
 
 the Faculty of Theology in Oxford. 9 
 
 pany of Nonconformists in the Church of England. He 
 was appointed to the Professorship in 1560, and elected 
 President of Magdalen in 1562. It is recorded that in the 
 "beginning of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, the town of 
 Oxford was so empty (after the Roman Catholics had left 
 it upon the alteration of religion), that there was very 
 seldom a sermon preached in the University Church, and 
 what was done in that kind was sometimes by Laurence 
 Humphrey, and sometimes by Thomas Sampson, Dean of 
 Christ Church. Humphrey had a great objection to the 
 Vestments, whether ecclesiastical or academical, and by 
 way of protest wore the round cap instead of the square. 
 His nonconformity brought upon him an admonition from 
 the Queen's Council in 1565; he subsequently conformed, 
 and was made Dean of Gloucester in 1570, and of "Win- 
 chester, 1580. He seems to have been an honest, and zeal- 
 ous, and religious man. Even Antony Wood, who has 
 seldom a good word to bestow upon a Puritan, speaks well 
 of him. His narrative gives a curious insight into the 
 interior of the University : " Humphrey brought back with 
 him from the city of Zurich, and the correspondence that 
 he had at Geneva, so much of the Calvinian both in doc- 
 trine and discipline, that the best that could be said of 
 him was, that he was a moderate and conscientious Noncon- 
 formist. Whence it was, that by his being many years 
 President of Magdalen College, Public Professor of Divinity 
 in the University, and several times Yice- Chancellor, he 
 did not only upon advantage issuing from these places stock 
 his college with a generation of Nonconformists, which 
 could not be rooted out in many years after his decease, 
 but sowed also in the Divinity School such seeds of Cal- 
 vinism, and laboured to create in the younger sort such 
 a strong hatred against the Papists, as if nothing but divine 
 truth were to be found in the one, and nothing but abominations 
 seen in the other. Howsoever it was, sure it is, that Hum- 
 phrey was a great and general scholar, an able linguist, 
 a deep Divine, and for his excellency of style, exactness 
 of method, and substance of matter in his writings, he 
 went beyond most of our Theologists." He appears to have
 
 10 Past Historij and Present Duties of 
 
 made the doctrines of Predestination, Reprobation, Final 
 Perseverance, Effectual Call, and Particular Redemption, 
 the chief subjects of his lectures, and adopted the Calvinistic 
 explanation of them. It is curious for us, with our modern 
 conceptions of the relations of parties, to read the title of 
 one of his books, "Puritano-Papismi, seu doctrinse Jesuiti- 
 cal confutatio" (1584). 
 
 Humphrey died in 1589 (Feb. 1), and was succeeded 
 by Dr. Holland. Holland had been Chaplain - Fellow of 
 Balliol, 1573, and became, in 1592, Rector of Exeter. He 
 appears to have been a Divine of very decided views, for 
 it is recorded that he never went any journey but he took 
 solemn leave of his Fellows with this Benediction : " Com- 
 mendo vos dilectioni Dei, odio Papatus et omnis supersti- 
 tionis g ." He is commended by A. Wood, for not having 
 given any such countenance to the propagating of Calvin's 
 doctrines as to make them the subject of his lectures and 
 disputations. His character has come down to us as sketched 
 in the funeral sermon preached by his friend Dr. Kilbie, 
 Rector of Lincoln, at St. Mary's, March 26, 1612: "As 
 touching his learning, such was his skill in the tongues, 
 and his multiplicity of knowledge in all arts and sciences 
 both divine and human, that as Baptista Mantuanus spake 
 of Picus Mirandola, 'in uno eodemque homine videri Hier- 
 onymum et Augustinum revixisse;' so it should seem that 
 both these learned Fathers did live in him again. He was 
 an Apollos, mighty in the Scriptures : he was familiarly 
 conversant amongst the Fathers, and as a Father among 
 them : and amongst the Schoolmen ' tanquam seraphicus 
 Doctor/ at whose mouth, as at an oracle, men might be 
 resolved in matters of doubt. And, therefore, most worthy 
 was he of that chief place of the Doctor of the Chair in 
 Divinity, which he with so great applause and approbation, 
 I had almost said admiration, so long (even about twenty 
 years) bare among us. He was so much renowned for his 
 preaching, reading, disputing, moderating, that all mouths 
 commended him, and strangers admired him : so that his 
 
 « Savage's " Balliofergus," p. 113.
 
 the Faculty of Theology in Oxford. 11 
 
 fame was spread abroad, and that in foreign countries as 
 well as at home." 
 
 Holland was succeeded by Robert Abbot, first Chaplain- 
 Fellow (1581), and then Master (1609), of Balliol. He is 
 described as being a more moderate Calvinian than either of 
 his two predecessors in the Divinity Chair, which he ex- 
 pressed by countenancing the Sublapsarian way of Predesti- 
 nation. An interesting account of his mode of discharging 
 the duties of his office is found in Mr. Pattison's Life of 
 Casaubon (p. 400), though we may be pardoned for smiling 
 at the delicate sarcasms on University life which pervade 
 the narrative of Casaubon's visit to Oxford. On Saturday, 
 May 19, 1613, Casaubon was taken by his host, Sir Henry 
 Savile, to the disputation in the Divinity School, where the 
 Professor moderated. "He was highly satisfied both with 
 the ability and the doctrine of the Regius Professor. His 
 conduct of the disputation was everything that could be 
 desired. On the critical question of faith and works, for 
 which all ears were then highly sensitive, he entirely satis- 
 fied Casaubon's judicial mind. He took, as became his 
 office, a moderate position, not repudiating the Calvinism 
 of the old school, and making sufficient concession to the 
 Arminianism of the new school. It was well known that 
 his own habits of thought attached him to the Calvinistic 
 side, and that he had no sympathy with the new Anglo- 
 Catholic modes of thinking, which were rising into con- 
 sideration, and were being pushed on by the younger zeal 
 of Laud." Casaubon was so pleased with Abbot, that he 
 put into his bands for revision six sheets of a work which 
 he was writing in refutation of Baronius. Party spirit ran 
 high in the University at the time, for the Vice-Chancellor, 
 who was the Professor's brother, George Abbot, afterwards 
 Archbishop of Canterbury, had a few years before endeav- 
 oured to stop the young Fellow of St. John's, William Laud, 
 from proceeding to his degree of B.D., because in his dis- 
 putations he had stoutly maiutained the doctrine of bap- 
 tismal regeneratiou, and the necessity of diocesan episco- 
 pacy to the existence of a Church. 
 
 Abbot held the Chair only for three years, when he was
 
 12 Past History and Present Duties of 
 
 promoted to the Bishopric of Salisbury, and subsequently 
 wrote a strong defence of the Royal Supremacy against 
 Bellarmine and Suarez, published in 1619. "He wrote all 
 his sermons in Latin only, and preached them out of the 
 Latin copy h ." 
 
 John Prideaux, Rector of Exeter, was his successor, and 
 was the first who enjoyed the new endowment of the Chair, 
 which by letters patent of James I. had permanently an- 
 nexed to it a Canonry at Christ Church, and the Rectory 
 of Ewelme. John Prideaux had been a most successful 
 tutor, the fame of his learning, ability, and judicious dis- 
 cipline had attracted many foreigners to his college, for 
 whose residence he had specially erected some buildiDgs, 
 which were only pulled down about twenty-two years ago. 
 Prideaux, in his theological views, was "a stout champion 
 against Socinus and Arminius." He seems to have almost 
 identified anti-Calvinistic views with Socinianism. It was 
 then the custom for the Professor to give annually a public 
 lecture at the Vespers or evening exercises the Saturday 
 before the Act in July. Prideaux published twenty- two 
 of these lectures, and the subjects of them shew the topics 
 which were then uppermost in the theological world. They 
 are such as these : " Is the absolute decree of Reprobation to 
 be admitted ? Besides the knowledge of simple under- 
 standing and vision, is a third and intermediate kind of 
 knowledge to be laid down as belonging to God ? Is grace 
 sufficient for salvation granted to all? Of two persons 
 endowed with equal grace, is one converted and saved, 
 while the other resists and is lost? Does faith alone, so 
 far as it apprehends the merits of Christ, and relies upon 
 them, j ustify ? Can true believers fall from grace finally 
 or totally ? Can the believer be, or ought he to be, certain 
 about his own salvation ? Can the people which have not 
 expected a promised Messiah, nor acknowledged Him when 
 sent, obtain salvation by the light of nature? Was the 
 Protestant Church as distinct from the Papal, before the 
 Lutheran Reformation, visible to the Christian world in 
 
 u Savage, p. 113. 

 
 the Faculty of Theology in Oxford, 13 
 
 every age? Does Jesuitical equivocation excuse lying or 
 perjury? Is the Pope, rather than the Turk, to be held 
 to be Antichrist? Are the Hebrew points of the same age 
 as the alphabet? Are the thousand Apocalyptic years of 
 the reign of the Saviour on earth with the saints to be 
 expected hereafter? In things pertaining to salvation, is 
 a discretionary judgment allowable? Is the religious in- 
 vocation of departed saints idolatrous ? Is the sacrifice of 
 the Popish Mass blasphemous?" Prideaux published also 
 thirteen speeches delivered at the Acts when Doctors were 
 admitted, and six sermons preached according to custom 
 at St. Mary's on Ash-Wednesday, at the beginning of the 
 Lenten disputations. His learning was great, but his style 
 somewhat ponderous and affected in the judgment of mod- 
 ern critics. He employed the Latin language, which he 
 wrote fluently, in all his lectures \ 
 
 The disputations and public exercises were attended by 
 crowded audiences in his time, and he was eminently popu- 
 lar with the majority of the residents, for he was an un- 
 flinching advocate of the Calvinistic determination of de- 
 bated questions. But this phase of doctrine was distasteful 
 to the opposite party, which under the powerful influence 
 of Laud was gradually making itself heard both in the 
 University and at Court, and was rebelling against the 
 popular theology. " So there grew up in the University an 
 antagonism between these, called Puritans or Calvinists 
 on the one side, and the Remonstrants, commonly called 
 Arminians, on the other k ." We may remember that it was 
 while Prideaux held the Chair of Theology, that there came 
 out the celebrated Royal Declaration prefixed to the thirty- 
 nine Articles, which makes such, marked reference to the 
 chief controversy of the day. " In these curious points, 
 in which the present differences lie, men of all sorts take 
 the Articles of the Church of England to be for them." 
 
 1 His strong anti-Komanist principles are attested in somewhat exaggerated 
 language by one of the Fellows of his own College, Nathaniel Carpenter, in 
 his " Geography delineated," published 1625. "In him the heroical wits of 
 Jewell, Eeynolds, and Hooker, as united into one, seem to triumph anew, 
 and threaten a fatal blow to the Babylonish Hierarchy," (p. 263). 
 
 k A. Wood.
 
 14 Past History and Present Duties of 
 
 "In these both curious and unhappy differences, which 
 have for so many hundred years, in different times and 
 places, exercised the Church of Christ, we will that all 
 further curious search be laid aside, and these disputes 
 shut up in God's promises, as they be generally set forth 
 to us in the Holy Scriptures, and the general meaning of 
 the Articles of the Church of England according to them. 
 That if any publick reader in either of our Universities, or 
 any Head or Master of a College, or any other person 
 respectively in either of them, shall affix any new sense 
 to any Article, or shall publickly read, determine, or hold 
 any publick disputation, or suffer any such to be held either 
 way, in either the Universities or Colleges respectively : or, 
 if any Divine in the Universities shall preach or print any- 
 thing either way, other than is already established in Con- 
 vocation with our Royal Assent : he, or they the offenders, 
 shall be liable to our displeasure, and the Church's censure 
 in our Commission Ecclesiastical, as well as any other, and 
 we will see there shall be due execution upon them." In 
 1641, Prideaux was raised to the see of Worcester; but his 
 episcopate fell on troublous times, the great civil war fol- 
 lowed, which drove him from his see, and reduced him to 
 great poverty. He was obliged to part with his library to 
 procure the means of living, a misfortune quaintly described 
 by A. Wood : "He became at length ' verus librorum helkto* 
 for having first by his indefatigable studies digested his 
 excellent library into his mind, he was after forced again 
 to devour all his books with his teeth, turning them by 
 a miraculous faith and patience into bread for himself and 
 his children, to whom he left no legacy but pious povert}^ 
 God's blessing, and a father's prayers, as it appears in his 
 last will and testament." 
 
 There followed next Robert Sanderson, perhaps on the 
 whole the most able and distinguished of all those who 
 have ever held the Chair. Sanderson has had the exquisite 
 advantage of having had his life written by Izaak Walton. 
 From it we learn that he was elected a Fellow of Lincoln 
 in 1606, Senior Proctor in 1616, and resigned his Fellow- 
 ship on being appointed to the Rectory of Boothby Pagnel 
 in Lincolnshire in 1619. He was made Chaplain to King
 
 the Faculty of Theology in Oxford. 15 
 
 Charles I. on the recommendation of Laud in 1631, in the 
 discharge of which office he was so faithful, that the King 
 used to say " I carry my ears to hear other preachers, but 
 I carry my conscience to hear Mr. Sanderson, and to act 
 accordingly." In 1643 he was named by the Parliament 
 one of the "Westminster Assembly of Divines, but he did 
 not attend, doubting the authority of the summons. On 
 July 21, 1642, he was nominated Regius Professor at Ox- 
 ford. It was only after much persuasion and urgency on 
 the part of the King and of many of his friends that he 
 was induced to accept the Professorship. He was oppressed 
 with the thought of its difficulty, amidst the distracting 
 controversies on religion then raging; he pleaded his age, 
 his nervousness, his long inexperience in Latin writing or 
 speaking, on account of his seclusion in the country for so 
 many years; his sense of inability to discharge the duties 
 of a prominent office 1 . But he finally surrendered his 
 wishes™, and endeavoured to recognise in his appointment 
 a call of Providence. He did not, however, enter upon the 
 performance of the duties of the office till after an interval 
 of four years. The causes of this long delay, which he has 
 detailed in his Inaugural Lecture, present us with an ex- 
 traordinary picture of the condition of England at the time. 
 He came to Oxford on his appointment in July, and went 
 back again to his country living, intending to pack up his 
 furniture, write his lectures, and return to begin his work 
 on November 1. One of his chests, containing some of his 
 most valuable property, was seized en route by falling into 
 the hands, as he says, "bonorum illorum virorum, quibus 
 pro jure vis est, et arma pro legibus." He was waiting for 
 a messenger to come from Oxford with letters and some 
 necessary news, but the messenger only arrived five days 
 after the appointed time, on foot, sad, squalid, and penniless. 
 
 1 " Is unus, quern et fateri pudet, pudor plusquain rusticus et invirilis quas- 
 dam verecundia. Insuperabilis ilia quidem, ut quam natura insevit, firmavit 
 educatio, fovit hactenus atque etiamnum fovet tenuitatis propria? consci- 
 entia."— (Sanderson's Works, IV. 231, ed. Jacobson.) 
 
 m " (Amici) renunciant fieri non posse : perstare in sententia regem : quod 
 ante jussisset et id ratum esse velle : non utique obniterer porro frustra, sed 
 onus quod excutere non possem, qua possem animi alacritate subirem et 
 perferrem."— (Id.)
 
 16 Past History and Present Duties of 
 
 The battle of Edge Hill had taken place on October 23, 
 and some of the soldiers who were scattered about the 
 country after that event robbed the unfortunate messenger 
 of his horse, and clothes, and money, and letter-bag. San- 
 derson, under these circumstances, thought it better to re- 
 main for a time where he was. The siege of Oxford fol- 
 lowed, and made return thither hopeless. 
 
 For two years Sanderson never went beyond the limits 
 of his parish, but was made a sort of hostage for the release 
 of a neighbouring Puritan minister, Mr. Clark, of Allington, 
 each of them being made answerable for the other, on the 
 condition that each should remain a virtual prisoner in his 
 own parish. Ultimately, after the surrender of Oxford to 
 the Parliamentary forces, Sanderson arrived here in the 
 middle of October, 1646, intending to ascertain the actual 
 condition of the University, and to take advice with his 
 friends as to the subjects which he should choose for his 
 lectures. He found himself, to his great surprise, morally 
 forced to begin lecturing at once : it was in vain that he 
 protested. With much reluctance he ascended the Chair, 
 and gave his Inaugural Lecture on October 26, 1646. He 
 avowed his intention of aiming at three things, Truth, 
 Piety, Peace. He expressed his dissent from those theo- 
 logians who ruthlessly criticise all that others have said or 
 written, or occupy themselves with ingenious but useless 
 subtleties and distinctions, or by a violent reaction from the 
 doctrines of their adversaries, become Semianabaptists by 
 way of being Antipapists, or Semipapists from being Anti- 
 puritans. He commented on the difficulty of contending 
 against the hydra-headed forms of contemporary heresy, 
 presented by Socinians, Pelagians, Antinomians, Anabaptists, 
 Erastians. It must have been a strange sound to an Ox- 
 ford audience, to hear a Professor speaking of the skill 
 requisite to detect the hypocrites and enthusiasts, who under 
 the pretence of Reformation cheat the world, who under 
 the mask of the Spirit fight for the flesh, who claim for 
 themselves the liberty of prophesying, that they may im- 
 pose it upon others more freely. The Professor ended with 
 enumerating seven different theological subjects between 
 which his choioe lay.
 
 the Faculty of Theology in Oxford. 17 
 
 1. An analytical explanation and illustration of an Apo- 
 stolic Epistle, with, a deduction of practical truths, a full 
 discussion of controversies arising out of the text, an en- 
 forcement of passages suitable for the refutation of heresy 
 or sectarianism, and a defence of the Scripture against 
 cavils and objections. 
 
 2. An orderly exposition of the Gospel History, by taking 
 one single Gospel, or a harmony of the four, solving the 
 historical difficulties and apparent contradictions. 
 
 3. A similar treatment of Church History as contained 
 in the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles. 
 
 4. A complete survey of the Bible History, from the 
 Creation to the establishment of the Christian Church, with 
 practical applications. 
 
 5. An exposition of some common place in Theology from 
 a text, such as the Completeness of Scripture, the Satis- 
 faction of Christ, the Authority of the Church, Original Sin, 
 Justification by Faith, the Merit of Works, Purgatory, 
 Transubstantiation. 
 
 6. An exposition of some common place of Practical or 
 Moral Theolog3 r , and solution of doubtful cases of conscience, 
 as about Vows, Oaths, Scandals, Things indifferent, Chris- 
 tian Liberty, Obedience and Subjection, Civil Contracts, 
 Divorce, Restitution. 
 
 7. A combination of Scholastic and Moral Theology, by 
 employing alternate terms in the discussion of Controversies 
 of Faith, and Cases of Conscience. 
 
 Sanderson's choice was finally determined by his own 
 special predilection, and by the circumstances of the time. 
 In the midst of the great political contest then going on 
 between King and Parliament, mere speculative questions 
 of Theology ceased to occupy attention : the practical duties 
 of citizens in regard to the side which they should take 
 in politics were forced upon the consideration of all in- 
 telligent men. The arts and sciences, the literature, of the 
 Universities, languished amid the clash of arms. Sander- 
 son determined to give a course of lectures on the obligation 
 of oaths, seven in number. This touched a point, as Izaac 
 Walton says, M very seraphical, and as difficult, and at that
 
 18 Past History and Present Duties of 
 
 time very dangerous, to be handled as it ought to be. 
 But this learned man, as he was eminently furnished with 
 abilities to satisfy the consciences of men upon that im- 
 portant subject, so he wanted not courage to assert the true 
 obligation of oaths, in a degenerate age, when men had made 
 perjury a main part, or, at least, very useful to their re- 
 ligion." In the following year he delivered a course of ten 
 lectures on the Obligation of Conscience. These lectures 
 were greatly admired at the time of their delivery, as an 
 adequate resolution of some of the most material points of 
 Casuistical Theology. They have been held to possess such 
 permanent value, that they have been edited in our own day 
 by Dr. Whewell, and more recently by Dr. Wordsworth, the 
 present Bishop of Lincoln. Of the general character of San- 
 derson's own theological views, we have an interesting ac- 
 count in a letter of his to Dr. Hammond. He began his sys- 
 tematic studies in Divinity by reading Hooker's " Ecclesias- 
 tical Polity," which settled his judgment for ever after in 
 very many weighty points, and proved a good preparation to 
 him (not to say, antidote) for the reading of Calvin's " In- 
 stitutions" with more caution than, perhaps, otherwise he 
 would have done. For that book had been commended to 
 him, as it was generally to all young scholars in those 
 times, as the best and perfectest system of Divinity, and 
 fittest to be laid as a ground-work in the study of that 
 profession. He found the method exact, the expressions 
 clear, the style grave, equal, and unaffected, his doctrine, 
 for the most part, conformable to St. Augustine's : in a 
 word, the whole work very elaborate and useful to the 
 Churches of God in a good measure, and likely to have been 
 much more useful, if the honour of his name had not given 
 so much reputation to his very errors. At first, he took 
 little notice of the questions of Election, Reprobation, Ef- 
 fectual Grace, Perseverance, &c. He acquiesced in the 
 Sublapsarian way of thinking on them, as more moderate, 
 rational, and agreeable to the goodness and justice of God: 
 for the rigid Sublapsarian doctrine could never find any 
 entertainment in his thoughts from first to last. But in 
 1625 he was led to consider the whole controversy, and soon
 
 the Faculty of Theology in Oxford. 19 
 
 discerned a necessity of quitting the Sublapsarian way as 
 well as the Supralapsarian. He adopted views much more 
 nearly resembling the Arminian ; but the general tenor 
 of his conclusions was, that we ought to rest satisfied with 
 the recognition of a certain autonomy between the electing 
 grace of God and the co-operation of man's will, without 
 attempting perfectly to reconcile the two truths ; and on 
 other points of the Quinquarticular Controversy he adopted 
 the same moderate and conciliatory views. The account 
 of this change in his opinions is given in a letter to Dr. 
 Pierce, by whom it was communicated to Hammond, in 
 consequence of which Hammond wrote and published an 
 elaborate letter entitled Xapt? Kal Elprjvrj, or a Pacific 
 Discourse of God's Grace and Decrees (1660). 
 
 At the same time, Sanderson was a strong anti- Romanist ; 
 in a Preface to one of his volumes of Sermons n , he declares 
 that in early years he attained to understand so much of 
 the Romish religion as not only to dislike it, but to be able 
 to give some rational account why he did so. And he was 
 an unflinching upholder of what, whether for good or for 
 evil, has been called the via media theory of the Church of 
 England ; and like other great men of like views, was not 
 ashamed of the term Protestant. The true belief and right 
 understanding of the great Article concerning the Scrip- 
 tures' sufficiency he affirmed to be " the most proper charac- 
 teristical note of the right English Protestant, as he standeth 
 in the middle between, and distinguished from, the Papists 
 on the one hand, and the sometimes-styled Puritan on the 
 other. I know not how he can be a Papist that truly be- 
 lieveth it, or he be a Puritan that rightly understandeth 
 it." He was a true specimen of the old Anglo-Catholic. 
 
 The disturbances of the time did not leave him in posses- 
 sion of his Professorship. The Covenant and the Negative 
 Oath were sent by the Parliament to Oxford to be sworn 
 to by all members of the University, on pain of expulsion, 
 within twenty-four hours after the beating of a drum. 
 The University drew up a reply of reasons for refusing 
 to take these oaths, the legal part of which was written 
 n Vol. II. xxxix., ed. Jacobson. 
 c2
 
 20 Past History and Present Duties of 
 
 by Zouch, the Regius Professor of Civil Law, and the ethi- 
 cal and theological part by Sanderson. On June 14, 
 1648, Sanderson was forced to pack up and depart, thankfu 
 not to be imprisoned as many of his friends were. He 
 lived, as most know, to be restored to his Professorship on 
 the return of Charles II. in 1660, and to be made Bishop of 
 Lincoln in the October of that year. He died amidst the 
 regrets of men of all parties in January, 166-f. 
 
 The Professorship was offered to Robert Crosse, Fellow of 
 Lincoln, but declined by him, and then to Joshua Hoyle, 
 from Trinity College, Dublin, whom the Parliamentary 
 Visitors had made Master of University. Lord Falkland 
 described him as "a person of some few weak parts, but 
 of very many strong infirmities °." 
 
 He died within six years p , and was succeeded by a far 
 abler man, John Conant, Rector of Exeter, a moderate Non- 
 conformist, of indefatigable industry and devotion to duty. 
 Upon his appointment, he read constantly twice a-week in 
 term-time. His lectures were " criticisms upon the Anno- 
 tations of Grotius, in which he vindicated the Scriptures 
 from such of his expositions as the Socinians had taken any 
 advantage from. These his orthodox and elaborate lectures, 
 composed in a true Roman style, and with great judgment 
 were received with the general approbation of the learned V 
 The Canonry of Christ Church was separated from the Chair 
 by the Parliamentary Visitors, and given to Henry Cornish, 
 of New College. On the Restoration, Conant, as might be 
 expected, had to make way for his expelled predecessor, and 
 not being able to satisfy himself with compliance with the 
 Act of Uniformity, voided his Headship; but ten years 
 afterwards, upon deliberate study of the whole question, he 
 renounced his scruples, was ordained Priest by Bishop Rey- 
 nolds, and subsequently became Archdeacon of Norwich, 
 and Vicar of All Saints, Northampton. 
 
 ° Bishop Barlow's Eemains (p. 328), publ. 1693. 
 
 p A. Wood, who was not likely to be an impartial critic, describes his 
 opening lecture on October 16 as a leaden discourse, totally destitute of any 
 kind of erudition in the judgment of most who heard it. 
 
 i " Life of John Conant, D.D.," by his son, first published by Rev. W. 
 Stanton (Rivingtons), 1823.
 
 the Faculty of Theology in Oxford. 21 
 
 Sanderson was made a Bishop so very shortly after his 
 restoration to the Professorship, that he was prevented from 
 resuming its duties, and there is no record of any later lec- 
 tures given by him. His immediate successor, Dr. Creed, 
 died after eighteen months' incumbency. There followed 
 Richard Allestree, afterwards Provost of Eton. He resigned 
 the Professorship in 1680 (May 8), and died in the following 
 January. A volume of his sermons was published in 1684, 
 and to that is prefixed a memoir of his life, written by an 
 intimate friend. This memoir gives a vivid account of hi3 
 work as Professor : " In the management of the business 
 of the Chair of Divinity, he performed the scholastic part 
 with great sufficiency in exact and dexterous untying the 
 knots of argument, and solid determination of controverted 
 points, so that he was not oppressed by the fame of any of 
 his most eminent predecessors. His prudence was very re- 
 markable in the choice of subjects to be treated on; for he 
 wasted not time and opportunity in the barren insignificant 
 parts of school divinity, but insisted on the fundamental 
 grounds of controversy between the Church of England and 
 the most formidable enemies thereof. With an equal stead- 
 iness, he asserted the Gfospel truth against the usurpations 
 of Rome, the innovations of Geneva, the blasphemies of 
 Cracow, and the monsters of our own Malmesbury, never 
 intermeddling with the unfathomable abyss of God's decrees, 
 the indeterminable five points. By his judicious care herein, 
 though he found the University in a ferment, and a great 
 part of its growing hopes sufficiently seasoned with ill pre- 
 possessions, he so brought it to pass that during the whole 
 tract of seventeen years that he held the Chair, there was 
 no factious bandying of opinions, nor petulant sidings on the 
 account of them." 
 
 That Allestree was a strong anti-Presbyterian is evident, 
 from a published Sermon preached on occasion of the con- 
 secration of four Bishops in 166f . Most of his extant ser- 
 mons are plain, practical, and devout ; some preached before 
 the King are models of faithful addresses. Allestree con- 
 ferred one great benefit upon his successors. He left for 
 their use a large library of between two and three thousand
 
 22 Past History and Present Duties of 
 
 volumes ; the full and easy use of which has been made 
 available by the accurate and laborious diligence of Dr. Ja- 
 cobson, the present Bishop of Chester, in writing out with 
 his own hand a complete catalogue of it. I can find little 
 notice of the public teaching of his immediate successors, 
 Dr. Jane, Dr. Potter, afterwards Bishop of Oxford and 
 Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rye r , and Dr. Fanshawe. 
 The most noticeable facts connected with the first-named, 
 Dr. Jane, are, that he was the person who first recommended 
 to the University Press Bishop Bull's classical work, " De- 
 fensio Fidei Nicena3," when it had been rejected by three 
 booksellers ; and that his election as Prolocutor of Convoca- 
 tion, in opposition to the Court candidate, Tillotson, led to 
 the suspension of the sittings of Convocation for more than 
 a century 8 . Potter's administration of his diocese of Oxford 
 is partly known to us by the notices of his interviews with 
 John and Charles Wesley. Fanshawe is mentioned by his 
 immediate successor as having been often seen by the Uni- 
 versity in the Chair of Theology, but whether as formally lec- 
 turing, or as moderating at the disputations, does not appear. 
 Dr. Edward Bentham, appointed in 1763, had been a 
 Tutor for twenty-four years, and Canon of Christ Church 
 for nine years before his elevation. He delivered an In- 
 augural Lecture in Michaelmas Term, 1764 K Towards the 
 close of it, he mentions that the old plan of teaching had 
 been for the Professor to expound in his lectures some part 
 of Holy Scripture. That plan he thinks adapted to a past 
 
 ' Dr. Eye had as his deputy, Dr. Thomas Eandolph, afterwards President 
 of Corpus, and Margaret Professor of Divinity. 
 
 8 Dr. Smalridge, Dean of Christ Church, was Deputy Professor for Dr. 
 Jane, from 1700 to 1706, " In Cathedrd, ubi Kegii Professoris vices sus- 
 tinuit, enucleate disserendi disputandique solertiam uno ore collaudavit heec 
 Academia." (Inscription on tomb in Ch. Ch.) 
 
 1 The inscription on his tomb in Christ Church states that he gave ad- 
 ditional voluntary lectures : — 
 
 " Postea in Cathedram Theologiae mandato regio evectus 
 Officio suo adeo non defuit, 
 Ut novis insuper lectionibus 
 
 Sponte et gratuito 
 Studiosorum gratia institutis 
 Non mediocrem inde susciperet laborem."
 
 the Faculty of Theology in Oxford. 23 
 
 condition of things, when books were rare, and access to 
 libraries was difficult, and the viva voce instructions of Pro- 
 fessors were proportionably more necessary and valuable. 
 Those who are on the foundations of Colleges, he urges to 
 remain at the University, to prosecute their studies for 
 a longer time ; to those who are called to go out into the 
 active service of the Church, either by the necessities of the 
 Church, or their own slender means of maintenance, he will 
 endeavour to give such guidance and practical direction as 
 he can by a course of lectures u . 
 
 Dr. Benjamin Wheeler, who immediately succeeded him 
 (1776 — 1783), had been first Professor of Poetry, and then 
 Professor of Natural Philosophy. He was originally a cho- 
 rister of New College, and in early life had found an influ- 
 ential patron in Bishop Lowth. Archbishop Newcombe, 
 who knew him intimately, has borne testimony to his ex- 
 cellent parts and severe application, sound taste and judg- 
 ment, exact and extensive learning T . Mr. Christopher 
 Wordsworth, in his wonderfully interesting and laborious 
 book, " Social Life at the English Universities in the Eigh- 
 teenth Century x ," observes that, though there were not 
 wanting men of learning and of purity in Oxford and Cam- 
 bridge, the few great Divines of the eighteenth century did 
 not communicate their knowledge and enthusiasm to the 
 younger men. For a Professor at the University to lecture 
 was almost the exception. But in 1766, Dr. Edward Ben- 
 tham delivered a course as King's Professor of Divinity, and 
 Dr. Hey, of Cambridge, did the same as Norrisian Professor. 
 Dr. Samuel Parr, writing in 1800, says, "Dr. Bentham 
 formerly read lectures in the Divinity School, and the same 
 
 u " Ego Praelectionum mearum cursum eo potissimum inflectere conabor 
 quo utilitas Junioruin prascipue me vocare videtur, ideoque quae dicenda 
 habeo in prseceptiommi seriern conjiciam eorura usibus accoinxnodatarn." 
 — (De Studiis Theologicis, 1764, p. 21.) 
 
 v One volume of his Theological Lectures was published long after his 
 death, in 1819, by Dr. Home, Fellow of Trinity. They treat of the great 
 doctrines of Dogmatic Theology, the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Office of 
 the Church, the Future Judgment, the Existence of Angels and Spirits, in 
 careful systematic order, and are characterised by perspicuity and sound 
 
 36. 
 
 Pp. 83, 85.
 
 24 Past History and Present Duties of 
 
 office is now performed with great ability by Dr. Randolph, 
 whose cares as a prelate (he was Bishop of Oxford) have not 
 made him inattentive to his duties as a Professor y." Of the 
 lectures of Dr. Randolph, who held the Chair from 1783 to 
 1807, a curious record is preserved in the personal reminis- 
 cences of the late Mr. G. Yalentine Cox : " These lectures 
 were then given late in the evening, by candle-light; one 
 effect of this was, that many of the class slept through the 
 lecture, waking up now and then at the sound of a Greek 
 quotation, e.g. 'The question still recurs (snuffing his pair 
 of candles by turns), iroOev to kclkov ; iroOev to kclkov ; 
 whence came evil?' The lecture was neither accompanied 
 nor followed by any questioning or examination. The only 
 things really carried away by the majority of the class were 
 the Syllabus, given to each one at the commencement of 
 the course, and a formidable printed list of authors recom- 
 mended for future reading, presented at the close of the 
 lectures z ." 
 
 After a short occupation by Dr. Hall, afterwards Dean of 
 Christ Church and of Durham, the Chair came next to Dr. 
 Howley, the future Archbishop of Canterbury. I can re- 
 member in my own school -boy days the mild dignity and 
 polished courtesy of that venerable prelate, as he appeared 
 on prize-days. He was painfully anxious in his choice of lan- 
 guage, and destitute of the gifts adapted for oratory; form r 
 ing in this a striking contrast to his j^ounger, but more able 
 friend, Bishop Blomfield. He held the Chair here too short 
 a time to have any influence on theological opinion. 
 
 There followed a man of greater intellectual power, Yan 
 Mildert, afterwards Bishop of Durham. His Bampton Lec- 
 tures, preached within a few months of his appointment to 
 the Professorship, are characterised by depth and perspicuity, 
 and a fearlessness of tone. The subject was, "An Enquiry 
 into the General Principles of Scripture Interpretation. " 
 It is recorded that the attraction of his public lectures in 
 Divinity was more than ordinary, and that the hearers were 
 alwa}'s remarkably numerous and attentive, and departed 
 
 y Parr's Spital Sermon, note 84, quoted by C. Wordsworth. 
 1 " Eecollections of Oxford," by G. V. Cox, p. 131.
 
 the Faculty of Theology in Oxford. 25 
 
 with expressions of satisfaction a . As preacher of Lincoln's 
 Inn he was highly appreciated by the barristers who formed 
 his congregation, and his Boyle Lectures on Infidelity have 
 a permanent value. 
 
 Frodsham Hodgson, Principal of Brasenose, then occupied 
 the Chair for two years, and was succeeded by Dr. Charles 
 Lloyd, afterwards Bishop of Oxford. He gave fresh life 
 and vigour to the Public Lectures, which had fallen into 
 comparative disregard. These lectures had most nearly 
 the character of the German Lectures on Encyclopaedia, 
 each lecture taking up half or perhaps all of a subject, 
 and referring to the books in which these subjects could be 
 studied in fuller detail. It was in this way that great 
 topics like Atheism or Deism were treated. Dr. Lloyd also 
 formed small classes of persons, who could remain in resi- 
 dence in the University for some time after taking their 
 degree. He read with them on a variety of subjects, giving 
 them special books to get up, catechising them upon these, 
 and then adding his own thoughts and observations. Thus 
 one term he discussed the criticism of the Septuagint, using 
 Carpzov's Introduction ; in others, Prideaux "on the History 
 between the Old and the New Testaments," Graves "on 
 the Pentateuch," Paley's Hor a Paulina, Mosheim's "Eccle- 
 siastical History." But his chief lectures were on the 
 Epistles of St. Paul. He set the example of an elaborate 
 study of the text and its interpretation, by occupying one 
 whole lecture with the discussion of the four first verses of 
 the Epistle to the Romans b . 
 
 Lloyd was followed by Dr. Edward Burton, who carried 
 on and extended the improvements introduced by his pre- 
 decessor, bestowing much individual attention on those 
 students who exhibited special interest in prosecuting theo- 
 logical studies. In 1805, he gave all who attended his 
 lectures a long list of books recommended for study, occu- 
 pying four closely-printed octavo pages. It was arranged 
 under the several heads of Atheism and Infidelity, Natural 
 
 8 " Life of Van Mildert," by C. Ives, i. p. 49. 
 
 b This account of Bishop Lloyd's lectures is given on the authority of 
 Dr. Pusey, who was himself one of his auditors.
 
 26 Past History and Present Duties of 
 
 and Revealed Religion, Deism, Evidences of Christianity, 
 Prophecy, Miracles, Hebrew and Syriac, the Jews, Holy 
 Scripture, Old Testament, Septuagint, New Testament, 
 Holy Trinity, Divinity of Christ, Atonement, Holy Spirit, 
 Creeds, Sacraments, Church Government, Ecclesiastical His- 
 tory, Fathers, Reformation, Popery, Mahometanism, Church 
 of England, Religious Faith and Practice, Pastoral Duties. 
 Dr. Burton contributed to the advance of Historical Theo- 
 logy by various works of which he was the author, such as 
 the "Testimonies of the Ante-Nicene Fathers to the Di- 
 vinity of Christ," and the "Testimonies of the Ante-Nicene 
 Fathers to the Doctrine of the Trinity and of the Divinity 
 of the Holy Ghost;" and his lectures on the "Ecclesiastical 
 History of the First Three Centuries" were much appre- 
 ciated, and went through three editions. Burton died 
 in the prime of life, having held the Chair for only seven 
 years. 
 
 At this stage of a biographical survey of my predecessors 
 in the Professorship, prudence and delicacy alike compel 
 me to stop. Dr. Hampden was appointed in 1836, Dr. 
 Jacobson in 1848, Dr. Payne Smith in 1865, and Dr. Mozley 
 in 1871. Two of them still survive, occupying high posts 
 in the Church. Of the controversy, bitter and protracted, 
 associated with the name of Hampden, it is manifestly 
 impossible for me to speak freely. In reading over recently 
 many of the innumerable pamphlets to which that contro- 
 versy gave birth, I could not but feel that they exhibited 
 many signs of intolerance and refusal to listen to the ex- 
 planations of the accused party. We can afford to judge 
 these disputes now more calmly in the distant retrospect. 
 Certainly a successor in the Chair may be excused for being 
 inspired, and somewhat overawed, with some consciousness 
 of the dignity and influence of his office, and the enormous 
 responsibility attached to it in academical opinion, when he 
 recalls how prohibition of attendance upon the lectures of 
 the Regius Professor, and his deprivation of a share in the 
 appointment of Select Preachers, were inflicted as penalties 
 for his alleged unsoundness in the faith. I have no desire 
 to kindle the ashes of a dead controversy : honesty compels
 
 the Faculty of Theology in Oxford. 27 
 
 me to say, that when as a young B.A. I attended the last 
 course of lectures given by Dr. Hampden before his removal 
 to the see of Hereford, I was totally unconscious of the 
 occurrence in them of any language implying departure 
 from the received form of orthodox doctrine. 
 
 The death of my lamented immediate predecessor has 
 deprived the world of literature, and the University, of the 
 most accomplished philosophic theologian whom this age 
 has produced, in the time of the full maturity of his patiently- 
 trained intellectual powers. To the world in general, to 
 many of ourselves, among whom I may include myself, he 
 speaks more powerfully and convincingly being dead, than 
 when living in our midst. The absence of the physical 
 powers which make a man an orator, and win the imagi- 
 nation or the understanding of his hearers, robbed his 
 noblest and most thoughtful utterances of the immediate 
 effect which their intrinsic merits so indisputably claimed. 
 The unanimity of laudatory criticism which was evoked 
 by the publication of Dr. Mozley's University Sermons in 
 1876, first revealed to the English public that the mantle 
 of the great Bishop, Joseph Butler, the Author of the 
 "Analogy" and "the Sermons," had fallen on a Divine of 
 this century. To those who are acquainted with the admir- 
 able sketch of Dr. Mozley's intellectual and moral character 
 drawn by the pen of his intimate friend, the present Dean 
 of St. Paul's, no additional eulogy is necessary or even 
 admissible. The boy was emphatically father of the man. 
 The inquisitive intellect which, before ten years of age, 
 could lead the child to defend the doctrine of free - will 
 to a favourite nurse against the Calvinistic sermons of the 
 parish curate, following throughout life its ruling passion, 
 naturally resulted in later j^ears in the authorship of such 
 works as the Augustinian Doctrine of Predestination, the 
 Bampton Lectures on Miracles, and the Lectures on Ruling 
 Ideas in Early Ages. The stern devotion to truth which 
 led him, at the bidding of what seemed to him an irresis- 
 tible argument of reason, to detach himself in the great 
 Baptismal Controversy of thirty years ago from the theo- 
 logical party with whom all his earliest sympathies were
 
 28 Past History and Present Duties, fyc. 
 
 associated, must be acknowledged even by those who are 
 not convinced by his reasonings, and do not reach his con- 
 clusions, to be a noble instance of intrepidity and intellectual 
 conscientiousness. 
 
 In controversy, he moved in a calm region of philosophic 
 thought and dialectic subtlety, where none of the miserable 
 personalities of debate could find entrance. In the inscru- 
 table providence of God he has been withdrawn all too 
 soon from the world of English thought, where his wisdom 
 and tenacious grasp of great ideas could have shed light 
 upon the vexed problems of Theology, and Science, and 
 Morality, and their relations. The same gifts are not given 
 to all. His successor cannot hope to follow him in the 
 intricacies of such profound speculations. He must attempt 
 a humbler task, and see whether he cannot turn to account 
 a long experience with the intellectual and moral wants 
 of the younger members of the academic body, by offering 
 them some guidance in their studies, and some help in 
 solving the problems of their age and time, which touch 
 on the deep mysteries of God's existence, and man's spiri- 
 tual life; and he will have his highest reward, if he can 
 impart to those who are destined to be ministers of the 
 Church of Christ in this land, an intelligent knowledge 
 of the doctrines which they are to teach, and the grounds 
 on which they rest; and to those whose call is to other 
 spheres of employment, an assurance that they will be 
 following the truest conclusions of reason, and the noblest 
 impulses of their moral nature, by living and dying as 
 believers of the Christian Faith.
 
 LECTURE II. 
 
 THE history of the study of Theology in Oxford is indis- 
 solubly connected with the history of the external 
 fortunes of the University, and its relations to the Church 
 and to the State. The University of Oxford, in its earliest 
 educational system, was modelled after the pattern of the 
 University of Paris. Even in such comparatively unimpor- 
 tant details as the hours when lectures should be given, 
 injunctions were given that there should be no departure 
 from the custom of Paris a . In the arrangement of the vari- 
 ous studies, one valuable principle has been steadily main- 
 tained from the very first, that Theology, as the most impor- 
 tant and crowning Science, should not be systematically 
 studied until after a long preparatory discipline. Theology 
 all along has been based upon Arts. The Statutes of Walter 
 de Merton, which were the model upon which were 
 framed all the earlier Statutes of the Colleges of Oxford and 
 Cambridge, expressly provided that the majority of the 
 Scholars on his foundation should continue engaged in the 
 liberal arts and philosophy, till passed on to the study of 
 Theology by the decision of the Warden and Fellows, and 
 as the result of meritorious proficiency in these preliminary 
 studies. The close association of Theology with Philosophy, 
 as then conceived, is manifested in the fact, that for three 
 centuries the Sentences of Peter Lombard formed the Theo- 
 logical text-book of the University. That noted work was 
 the introduction of the scholastic dialectic into the elucida- 
 tion and defence of the dogmatic system of the Church. 
 Professing to be based almost entirely on extracts from the 
 writings of four Fathers of the Latin Church — Augustine, 
 Ambrose, Hilary, and Cassiodorus — it notwithstanding made 
 
 a Letter of Eobert Grossteste, Bishop of Lincoln, a.d. 1240. "Ne a pa- 
 trum et majorum vestigiis et conformitate Regentium Parisiis Theologorum 
 manifeste recedatur."
 
 30 Past History and Present Duties of 
 
 the appeal from authority to reason, and issued in specula- 
 tions which left little time for the study either of the Bible 
 or the Christian Fathers. In Oxford, the graduate in 
 Theology was admitted to the public reading of the Sen- 
 tences before he was admitted to the lecturing on the Bible. 
 There had been a Public Lecture endowed by Edward IV. 
 in 1481, and another by the Lady Margaret, Countess of 
 Richmond, in 1502 ; and another by Cardinal Wolsey in 
 1518. The first occupants of these chairs seem to have ex- 
 pounded portions of Scripture. After Luther had published 
 some of his first writings, the Oxford Professors addressed 
 themselves to the defence of the existing dogmatic faith of 
 the Church. The foundation of the Begius Professorship 
 of Divinity synchronises with the stormy period of the 
 Beformation. In the midst of the fierce controversies of the 
 age, it was impossible that a calm scientific study of Theo- 
 logy should flourish. The struggles, political and eccle- 
 siastical, between the old and the new learning, were too 
 intense for any dispassionate survey of Theological truth. 
 The Crown of England was engaged in an internecine war 
 with the Papacy : whether Bomanists or Protestants were in 
 power, dissentients from the established religion held their 
 lives in their hands, and were liable to death, or imprison- 
 ment, or exile. The University was no sequestered home of 
 calm study ; its life beat in perfect unison with the life of 
 the nation, and it could only boast a very partial independ- 
 ence of the State. In our quieter days of toleration and 
 freedom, we can hardly realize what must have been the 
 intensity of Theological strife in the days when Peter Mar- 
 tyr and Bichard Smyth, the actual and the deposed Professor 
 of Theology, disputed in the School, amidst the tumult of 
 rival factions, and the imminent danger of life and limb. 
 Doubtless, in Oxford as in Cambridge, and throughout the 
 land generally, there was revived a more earnest and pro- 
 found study of the Bible, the original source of Christian 
 Theology ; continuous expositions of particular books of 
 the Bible were part of the method of teaching adopted by 
 the first Public Lecturers. But this increased study of the 
 Bible was materially vitiated by the controversial temper in
 
 the Faculty of Theology in Oxford. 31 
 
 "which it was pursued : the object was not so much to arrive 
 at an honest exegesis of the meaning of the original text, as 
 to find in it arguments for the refutation of opposed doc* 
 trines. It was almost inevitable that the destructive ten- 
 dency under such a method should be stronger than the con- 
 structive : by the very nature of the case, Protestantism, in its 
 genuine original sense, as a protest against corruptions, had 
 to justify its existence, and this produced corresponding 
 Defences on the other side. Vehement language in contro- 
 versy, not unmixed with personal abuse, was thought allow- 
 able on both sides. We may be thankful that the happier 
 circumstances of our own time have given us the opportunity 
 (would that we all used it !) of adopting a calmer, more 
 argumentative tone ; yet it is not for us, who are in no peril 
 of our lives, to pass too severe a criticism upon the contro- 
 versial attitude of men, who had to prove the sincerity of 
 their convictions, from time to time, by the surrender of 
 their life or their country. 
 
 The two great controversies which agitated the theological 
 studies of Oxford for a century and more, were that between 
 Popery and Protestantism, and that between Calvinism and 
 Arminianism. Our preceding survey of those who have held 
 the chief Chair of Theology in the University, can have left 
 no doubt that from the time of Elizabeth to that of Charles I. 
 the dominant theology was strongly anti -Papal and as 
 strongly Calvinistic. After the first fierce struggles of the 
 reigns of Edward VI. and Mary, many of the Heads of 
 Houses and Fellows of Colleges returned to their allegiance 
 to Rome. It was necessary, therefore, and only natural, 
 that the Crown should nominate for the highest posts of in- 
 fluence men who were not likely to revert to belief in the 
 Supremacy of the Pope. Most of the Divines who were most 
 warmly attached to the cause of the Reformation had, during 
 the Marian persecutions, fled to Switzerland, and associat- 
 ing at Zurich, Geneva, Strasburg, with the leading foreign 
 Reformers, had adopted opinions which were far more ad- 
 vanced in the way of departure from the old doctrine and 
 ceremonies of the medieval Church, than were those of the
 
 32 Past History and Present Duties of 
 
 Prayer-Book of the Church of England in 1549. More par- 
 ticularly, they had fallen under the influence of that great 
 master of metaphysical Theology, John Calvin, and had 
 embraced his logically-elaborated views on the subtle ques- 
 tions of Predestination and Free-will. They identified anti- 
 Calvinistic views with Popery and Pelagianism. In their 
 studies, the Institutes of Calvin had taken the place of the 
 Sentences of Peter Lombard. The first Regius Profes- 
 sors belonged to this school of thought. Humphrey was 
 so outspoken in his Disputations and Lectures, that he got 
 the title of Papisto-Mastix. Holland, as we have seen, on 
 starting a journey, used to commend his Fellows to the love 
 of God, and hatred of Popery and all superstition. Abbot 
 wrote a treatise " Exercitationes de Gratia et Perseverantia 
 Sanctorum" (1618), and another called "The Mirror of 
 Papist Subtleties" (1594). Prideaux was "a stout champion 
 against Arminius and Socinus." This dominant tendency 
 of personal influence naturally affected all the public teach- 
 ing and public ordinances of the University. In 1578, 
 Convocation ordered, that, for the extirpation of heresy and 
 instruction of young men in true piety, these books should 
 be read, Nowell's " Larger Catechism," or John Calvin's 
 " Catechism," or the " Elements of Christian Religion," by 
 Andrew Hyperius, or the " Heidelberg Catechism ;" and to 
 these might be added, for those older, the "Catechism" of 
 Bullinger, the " Institutions" of Calvin, or Jewel's "Apo- 
 logy of the Church of England," or the " Thirty-nine Arti- 
 cles, with an explanation of the Doctrines by Texts from 
 Scripture, or sometimes from the Fathers ;" and all Cate- 
 chisms contrary to this sound doctrine, and other supersti- 
 tious and Popish books, were forbidden to be read or pos- 
 sessed. A Catechist was to be appointed in each college to 
 cany out this ordinance. 
 
 Sermons filled with personal invectives against oppo- 
 nents having been frequently preached in the University, 
 Lord Leicester, the Chancellor, ordered that no one should 
 be allowed to preach before the University who had not 
 satisfied the Yice-Chancellor and the Regius Professor ; and, 
 if after license any one preached unsoundly or offensively, 

 
 the Faculty of Theology in Oxford. 33 
 
 he should be convened before these two officers, and in- 
 hibited from preaching till found to be thoroughly reformed. 
 The same Chancellor complained in 1582 that the Queen's 
 Reader read few times, and very negligently when he did 
 read ! and again, in 1590, that he read only twice, instead 
 of six times a-week. There are records of constant sus- 
 pensions of preachers for assailing the popular Theology 
 during the next twenty or thirty years. In 1616, a sense 
 of weariness of the perpetual discussion, in season and out of 
 season, of the Calvinistic controversy, seems to have come 
 over the authorities ; and James I. sent an order that young 
 Students in Divinity be directed to study such books as 
 be most agreeable in Doctrine and Discipline to the Church 
 of England, and excited to bestow their time on the Fathers 
 and Councils, Schoolmen, Histories and Controversies, and 
 not to insist too long upon Compendiums and Abbreviators, 
 making them their grounds of their study in Divinity. 
 Heylin has expressed his opinion, that this was the first 
 step towards the suppressing of that reputation which Cal- 
 vin and his writings had attained to in this Univer- 
 sity, though it was thwarted by the opposition and luke- 
 warmness of the two Professors of Divinity, Prideaux and 
 Benefield. The next year, in pursuance of the royal in- 
 junctions, Convocation established the famous Court of the 
 Six Doctors, who were to have the power of trying and 
 inhibiting any preacher who interpreted any doctrine con- 
 trary to Holy Scripture, or favoured any perverse opinions, 
 from which it might^be seen that he took any party side 
 ("ex quo partium studio probabiliter esse addictum constet"). 
 
 This was at the instigation of Laud, and brought on him 
 afterwards a storm of unpopularity. The weapon told 
 against both parties : in one and the same year (1630) one 
 preacher was punished for attacking the Synod of Dort, 
 another for attacking the Arminian Bishops. 
 
 A curious illustration of the continuance of the old in- 
 fluence is found in a letter of Laud to the Bishop of Win- 
 chester, dated Feb. 2, 1636: — "I have often wondered 
 why so many good scholars come from Winchester to New 
 College, and yet so few of them afterwards prove eminent
 
 34 Past History and Present Duties of 
 
 men. And while I lived in Oxford, I thought upon divers 
 things that might be causes of it, and I believe true ones ; 
 but I have lately heard of another, which I think hath done 
 and doth the college a great deal of harm in the breeding 
 of their young men. When they come from Winchester, 
 they are to be probationers two years, and then Fellows. 
 A man would think those two years, and some years after- 
 ward, should be allowed to Logic, Philosophy, Mathematics, 
 and the like grounds of learning, the better to enable them 
 to study Divinity with judgment : but I am of late acci- 
 dentally come to know, that when the probationers stand for 
 their Fellowships, and are to be examined how they have 
 profited, one chief thing in which they are examined is, how 
 diligently they have read Calvin's ' Institutions : ' and are 
 more strictly held to it, how they have profited in that 
 than almost in any kind of learning besides. I do not deny- 
 but that Calvin's ' Institutions ' may profitably be read, 
 and as one of their first books of Divinity, when they are 
 well grounded in other learning : but to begin with it so 
 soon, I am afraid doth not only hinder them from all 
 grounds of judicious learning, but also too much possess 
 their judgments before they are able to judge, and makes 
 many of them humorous in, if not against, the Church." 
 
 It was impossible that there could be any scientific treat- 
 ment of Theology in the midst of such party struggles, and 
 such perpetual interferences from external authorities. The 
 spirit of controversy roused angry tempers : the possibility 
 was hardly admitted that neither of the extreme views might 
 be right : that an exaggerated Calvinism might annihilate 
 free-will, and with it moral responsibility ; that an exag- 
 gerated Arminianism might annihilate the need of Divine 
 Grace. It hardly occurred to the excited disputants to en- 
 quire, on the one side, whether the Papal System did not 
 contain a large element of primitive catholic truth, as well 
 as an element of medieval corruption ; or on the other, 
 whether Puritanism did not bear witness to the spirituality 
 and individuality of religion, which might be crushed by 
 an exclusive consideration of the outer framework of the 
 Church. The consequence is, that no theological works of
 
 the Faculty of Theology in Oxford. 35 
 
 permanent value have come to our age, written by the 
 academic Divines of this period. The one great philosophic 
 work of the age, which though called out in the first in- 
 stance by a passing controversy, will remain a fcrr/fia ek aei, 
 the " Ecclesiastical Polity," was written by Richard Hooker 
 in the seclusion of a country parsonage, and eight years after 
 he had ceased to be a resident Fellow of Corpus. It is a 
 signal instance of the majesty of a calm discussion, which, 
 pervaded by subtle humour, is altogether free from, the 
 bitterness of party spirit, that Pope Clement VIII., on hear- 
 ing the first book translated into Latin, declared, " This j 
 man will get reverence by age, for there is in him such | 
 seeds of eternity, that if the rest be like this, they shall last 
 till the last fire shall consume all learning." 
 
 The first Professor to whom Theology owed the chance 
 of being treated in a freer spirit apart from violent partisan- 
 ship, was Sanderson. I have already recalled the account 
 of his own mental history in connection with the Calvinistic 
 controversy, and his recoil from the extreme views of either 
 side. The temper of the man is shewn in the famous Preface 
 to our present Prayer-Book, composed by him : " It hath 
 been the wisdom of the Church of England, ever since the 
 first compiling of her publick Liturgy, to keep the mean 
 between the two extremes. In this review, we have en- 
 deavoured to observe the like moderation, as we find to have 
 been used in the like case in former time. Our general 
 aim, therefore, in this undertaking was, not to gratify this 
 or that party in any their unreasonable demands ; but to do 
 that which to our best understandings we conceived might 
 most tend to the preservation of peace and unity in the 
 Church, the procuring of reverence, and exciting of piety 
 and devotion in the publick worship of God, and the cutting 
 off occasion from them that seek occasion of cavil or quarrel 
 against the Liturgy of the Church." 
 
 Sanderson was only able to deliver two courses of Public 
 Lectures in Oxford. These, it is true, were suggested by 
 the immediate circumstances of the time ; they treated of 
 casuistical questions in reference to the obligation of oaths 
 and of conscience. But they discussed these questions with 
 
 d2 
 
 \\
 
 36 Past History and Present Duties of 
 
 philosophical breadth and precision, and endeavoured to 
 base practical rules upon scientific principles : that they 
 were a permanent contribution to Moral Theology, and not 
 merely ephemeral pamphlets, is attested by the fact, to which 
 I have before referred, that they have in our own day been 
 re-edited by two men of such different intellectual and theo- 
 logical tendencies as Dr. Whewell and Bishop Wordsworth. 
 A theologian like-minded with Sanderson adorned Oxford 
 at the same time, Henry Hammond, Sub-Dean of Christ 
 Church. And he, too, though he wrote a good deal in 
 reference to passing controversies, had nobler conceptions 
 of the province of Theology than his academical predeces- 
 sors. His "Practical Catechism" was a valuable applica- 
 tion of speculative Theology to the religious conduct of life, 
 and is said to have done more than any other work in stem- 
 ming the tide of vice and profanity which broke loose at 
 this time b ." His " Annotations on the New Testament," 
 set the example of interpreting the New Testament in its 
 original and historical meaning, with reference to the cus- 
 toms of the Jews, and of the first heretics in the Christian 
 Church, and of the heathens, especially in the great games, 
 with learned illustrations of the Hellenistic dialect. His 
 biographer, Dr. Fell, tells us that on taking his M.A. degree, 
 he bought a system of Divinity, with design to apply him- 
 self straightway to that study ; but upon second thoughts, 
 he returned for a time to humane learning : and afterwards, 
 when he resumed his purpose for Theology, he took quite 
 a different course of reading from the other too much usual, 
 beginning that science at the upper end, as conceiving it 
 most reasonable to search for primitive truth in the primi- 
 tive writers, and not to suffer his understanding to be pre- 
 possessed by the contrived and interested schemes of modern 
 authors. 
 
 During the century from 1650 to 1750 ecclesiastical 
 affairs were so inextricably bound up with political, and the 
 Universities so controlled by external authority, as of the 
 Crown and the Chancellor, that Theology could not flourish. 
 There were endless controversies, attacks and defences, con- 
 b Perry, " Student's English Church History," p. 519.
 
 the Faculty of Theology in Oxford. 37 
 
 tested elections, schemings for preferment, but little scien- 
 tific study, either of Scripture or of Dogmatic Theology. 
 The great Church of England Divines whose names survive, 
 and whose works are still read, lived away from the Uni- 
 versities. Pearson, it is true, was Margaret Professor at 
 Cambridge from 1661—1673, but his classical work on the 
 Creed was originally a series of lectures in his parish church 
 of St. Clement's, Eastcheap, in London. Bull was driven 
 away from the University of Oxford by the troubles of the 
 Civil War, after only two years' residence, and wrote his 
 Defensio Fidei Nicena, and his Judicium Ecclesice (for which 
 he received the thanks of Bossuet and all the Gallican 
 clergy), in the comparative obscurity of a country parish 
 and a "Welsh bishopric. Butler wrote the "Analogy" 
 whilst Rector of Stanhope, in Durham. The only theo- 
 logical authors of eminence resident in the Universities 
 were, Isaac Barrow, Master of Trinity, and Waterland, 
 Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge. 
 
 The Caroline Divines had driven Calvinistic doctrine from 
 the higher theology of the Church of England, but there 
 was little constructive teaching to take its place c . The age 
 of Evidences succeeded, when the attention of men was more 
 directed to proving the truth and reasonableness of Chris- 
 tianity against the Atheistical and Deistical Schools, than to 
 expounding what Christianity was, and how it might be 
 applied to the emergencies of human life. Exegetical Theo- 
 logy in connection with Scripture was almost extinct. In 
 Oxford, the old system of disputations for degrees in Theo- 
 logy, which required the capacity of seeing what might 
 be urged against received dogmas of Christian Faith, and 
 ready skill in answering the objections, had at one time 
 possessed some life and reality ; but it had gradually 
 subsided into unmeaning formalities, where all was pre- 
 
 c There is a curious passage in Archbishop Potter's Speech in Convoca- 
 tion, Dec. 10, 1741, when passing eulogy on Waterland, who had recently 
 died : " Jam certe tantum non obrnutuit Ariana impietas, quaa aliquot ab- 
 hinc annis tarn insolenter se extulerat ut, vano licet augurio, palam jactare 
 non vereretur, brevi temporis spatio baud plures reperiundos fore qui Nicaeni 
 Concilii fidem, quam qui obsolcta qua dam Calvini dogmata, defenderent. " 
 
 f
 
 38 Past History and Present Duties of 
 
 arranged, and there was no room for originality, or for dia- 
 lectic skill. 
 
 The movement originating in Oxford, which caused a re- 
 volution in the moral and spiritual life of the country, was 
 connected not with speculative, but practical Theology. 
 John "Wesley, Fellow of Lincoln, his brother Charles, Stu- 
 dent of Christ Church, * Ingham, of Queen's, Broughton, 
 Fellow of Exeter, Whitfield, of Pembroke, and others, formed 
 the first Society whom the world nick-named Methodists, 
 and who certainly have affected the popular theology of their 
 countrymen far more than all the contemporary Professors 
 of Oxford and Cambridge. It is treading on delicate 
 ground, but I suppose it may be said that, on the other 
 hand, the Oxford movement of a century later, which we 
 have known in our own time, was primarily based on a 
 speculative theory of the grounds of Christian Dogma, 
 though it largely revolutionised the whole practical life of 
 the Church. But it was propagated, not from the Chair 
 of the Professor, but from the lecture-room of the College 
 tutor, and from the parsonage of the poet pastor, and from 
 the pulpit of the parochial Yicar, and not of the University 
 Preacher of St. Mary's, and enforced not so much by new 
 writings, as by republication of the writings of the ancient 
 Catholic Fathers and the English Caroline Divines. There 
 was a proportionate danger of English Theology losing any, 
 living freshness by becoming wholly a reproduction of the 
 thought of past generations, and refusing to grapple with 
 the new scientific and literary problems of contemporary 
 culture. 
 
 In tracing very rapidly the history of the formal study 
 of Theology in Oxford, I may begin with saying, that the 
 Statutes as they were in force last century, ordered the, 
 Margaret Professor to lecture every Tuesday and Thurs- 
 day at 9 a.m., when he was to expound in the School of 
 Divinity some part of Scripture ; and all Bachelors in Di- 
 vinity, and all Fellows and Chaplains of Colleges or Halls 
 who were in Holy Orders, were to attend these lectures till 
 they were of standing for D.D. The Regius Professor was. 
 in the same way to lecture at 9 a.m. every Monday ancL
 
 the Faculty of Theology in Oxford, 39 
 
 Friday on some part of Scripture, and all M.A.'s (unless 
 they were bond fide students of Law or Medicine) were to 
 attend till they were of standing for D.D. At the same 
 period, every candidate for B.D. had to attend the lectures 
 of the Professor for seven years ; and must have been twice 
 an opponent, and once a respondent for two hours in a theo- 
 logical disputation, and have preached a Latin Sermon at 
 St. Mary's. A candidate for D.D. had to attend the lec- 
 tures of the Professor for four years, and to lecture six times 
 in Latin, from 1 to 2 p.m., on any part of Scripture, or to 
 give three cursory lectures on the Epistle to the Galatians, 
 or one of those to Timothy or Titus, or one Epistle of S. Peter. 
 How far these Statutes were observed, how often they were 
 dispensed with, I cannot ascertain. In 1855, these Statutes 
 about degrees were amended, the graduate was to be bound 
 to have given attention to Theology, either in Oxford or 
 elsewhere. In 1868, two English dissertations on some 
 subject of dogmatic or critical Theology, and three exposi- 
 tions of passages of Scripture, were substituted for the old 
 disputations and Latin theses. In 1842, in consequence of 
 the foundation of the two new Regius Professorships of 
 Pastoral Theology and Ecclesiastical History, a new Theo- 
 logical Statute was passed (mainly, I believe, under the 
 suggestions of the present Venerable Provost of Oriel), with 
 the avowed object of improving the education of candidates 
 for Holy Orders d ; and an examination was instituted, to 
 be held once a-year, open to all Bachelors of Arts under the 
 standing of M.A. ; and in 1864, an additional Statute was 
 passed, giving the three Denyer and Johnson Theological 
 Scholarships to the three best candidates in this Examina- 
 tion. The purely Voluntary Examination proved an utter 
 failure. If the Register has, been correctly kept, the total 
 number who passed between 1844 and 1863 was only seven. 
 Since the prize of the Scholarships was added, fifty-two 
 have passed in the twelve years. 
 
 A much more effectual measure for the revival of the sys- 
 tematic study of Theology in the University was the accept - 
 
 d " Quum in tota re thcologica liodie opus sit majori et labore et subsidio, 
 quo melius et accuratius ad sacros ordines instituantur studiosi."
 
 40 Past History and Present Duties of 
 
 ance by Convocation, in 1869, of a Statute by which an 
 Honour School of Theology was established, co-ordinate 
 with the Schools of Literse Humaniores, Mathematics, Mo- 
 dern History, Jurisprudence, and Natural Science ; the 
 principle being admitted that a common literary and clas- 
 sical culture should be given to all students for the first part 
 of their curriculum, and that then, to qualify for their de- 
 gree, a certain amount of proficiency in any one of these 
 six branches of study should suffice. Under that Statute we 
 are now living. I cannot think that at present the School 
 of Theology can be said to have worked satisfactorily. Since 
 1874 there have been four occasions when the First Class 
 has been utterly empty ; since 1870, nine times when it has 
 contained only one name. This is hardly the occasion to 
 discuss the reasons for this disheartening result ; they will 
 be found partly in the fact, that at first there was a very 
 inadequate conception formed by many students of the 
 standard of industry and proficiency requisite for success 
 in any Honour School ; partly in the inferior preliminary 
 training of those who offered themselves, very few candi- 
 dates having previously obtained Honours in the First 
 Classical Examination ; partly in the novelty and uncertainty 
 of the whole scheme ; partly in the lamentable, but not un- 
 natural, absence in most Colleges of any moral support of 
 the School, and of any efficient tutorial assistance to candi- 
 dates, — a deficiency contrasting so unfavourably with the 
 advantages open to candidates in other comparatively new 
 Schools, such as Modern History. 
 
 Still, admitting fully that the development of the School 
 during these its first nine years, has disappointed the ex- 
 pectations of those who most warmly advocated it, and that 
 there is room for much improvement, towards which both 
 the teachers and the taught must contribute, it is undeniable 
 that there has been revived the closer study of the original 
 Scripture, of the early Church historians, and of portions of 
 the writings of the early Christian Fathers. The School 
 has steered clear of the threatened rocks of a narrow par- 
 tisanship ; many men who have been ordained have entered 
 the ministry with a far better intellectual equipment than
 
 the Faculty of Theology in Oxford. 41 
 
 many of their predecessors, and a right method has been 
 pursued ; not that of starting from some modern Body of 
 Divinity, but that of going back to the original sources e . 
 
 What are the duties of Theology, and of the Professors of 
 Theology, to the University in its present condition? In 
 endeavouring to answer this question, I hope not to be un- 
 mindful of the proverb, " Let not him that putteth on his 
 armour boast himself as he that putteth it off," but I ven- 
 ture to express an opinion that we who are called to Chairs 
 of Theology have distinct duties : 1. Towards the candidates 
 in the Honour School of Theology ; 2. Towards the candi- 
 dates for Ordination, who are required by the Bishops of the 
 Church to attend our lectures ; 3. Towards the Church at 
 large, more particularly its ministers, in reference to the 
 controversies of our own day ; 4. Towards the world of lite- 
 rature and culture, who are confronted with mighty theo- 
 logical problems raised by science and criticism. 
 
 1. Towards students aiming at Honours in Theology. — 
 Here, as it appears to me, Professors ought not to be ex- 
 pected to give the mere elementary knowledge by construing 
 text-books, or keeping exclusively in view any particular 
 scheme of examination, — that is rather the province of the 
 private lecturer or tutor; but they should try to commu- 
 nicate the more advanced teaching, giving general intro- 
 ductions to books of the Bible, or evolving the general 
 thought of a book, or expounding some fundamental Christian 
 dogma, or giving philosophic comments on the history of the 
 Church or of Christian Doctrine, or determining the relation 
 of Theology to other sciences, or defending doctrines against 
 misrepresentations or objections. The Professors will, of 
 course, act upon the principle of a division in labour, being 
 as they are six in number, with the provinces of most of 
 them clearly defined by their Statutes, and should try to 
 organize the logical teaching and study, by attempting some 
 solution of the vexed problem of harmonizing University 
 and Collegiate or inter-Collegiate instruction. A new Pro- 
 
 e " Libri Novi Testamenti ex ipsis fontibus exponantur. In historia etiam 
 turn ecclesise turn liturgiarum tractanda fontium utriusque ratio habeatur." 
 (Statute, vi. (ix.), II. 8, 26.
 
 42 Past History and Present Duties of 
 
 fessor may be pardoned for expressing a hope, that the syn- 
 chronising of the action of a University Commission, pos- 
 sessed of large powers of re-organization, with his own 
 appointment, may facilitate any feeble efforts of his own 
 to accomplish these particular ends. 
 
 2. Towards Candidates for Holy Orders. — In this respect, 
 the Regius Professor has a larger responsibility of duty 
 laid upon him than any of his colleagues. For, following 
 long prescription, almost all the English Bishops require 
 attendance on his lectures, if not on those of some second 
 Professor, as a condition of admission of Oxford candidates 
 for ordination in their dioceses. This circumstance, it seems 
 to me, largely determines the duty of the Regius Professor 
 in his more Public Lectures, two series of which he is or- 
 dered by the Statute to give in each year. He cannot, or 
 he ought not, to forget that a very considerable number of 
 men who come to his lectures probably never go to any 
 other theological lectures than his during the whole time 
 of their University residence. If he feels that by this ar- 
 rangement he is protected against competition, and secured 
 an audience, he ought also to feel, as it appears to me, that 
 he has an opportunity given him of which he ought to avail 
 himself. He must not be minute in any one branch of his 
 subject, he must be general ; he must try to arrest atten- 
 tion, to kindle a spiritual as well as an intellectual interest 
 in those who may hereafter be the teachers of the Church ; 
 he must be a general guide and adviser, mapping out por- 
 tions of the field to be explored, suggesting a method, 
 inspiring curiosity, rousing mental activity, rather than 
 pouring in information. He who now enters on office 
 would only be too happy if he could think that, having 
 a clear conception of "the ideal in this 'function, he were 
 able in any measure to realise it. He knows that he 
 labours under the dead weight of an evil tradition, which 
 often makes this compulsory attendance degenerate into 
 an idle formality; he appeals to the generous impulses 
 of young men with whom he has been in intimate sym- 
 pathy and intercourse in Oxford for thirty years, to help 
 him in breaking down the evil tradition. , j
 
 the Faculty of Theology in Oxford. 43 
 
 3. Towards the Church at large, more particularly the 
 clergy, in reference to the controversies of our own day. — 
 It is apparently the inexorable law of the operation of 
 the human intellect, that there must be diversities of opi- 
 nion, opposed modes of thought and feeling, determined 
 partly by original differences of mental constitution, partly 
 by the associations of education. "We cannot all hope to 
 see alike. The Church of Christ is no exception in this 
 respect to other Societies. From the beginning of its 
 existence, from the days of its Apostolic infancy, there have 
 been in it " schools of thought." Now, as of old, there are 
 some who turn rather to the more subjective side of Theo- 
 logy, and concentrating their chief attention upon the 
 religious wants of the individual soul and its relations to 
 God, dwell almost exclusively upon what have been called 
 " the Doctrines of Grace ; " while there are others whose 
 point of view is more objective, whose thoughts are ar- 
 rested by the majesty of the conception of the Church as 
 one Body, with an external organization and visible rites. 
 The one dwells most in the present, the other looks back 
 with fond memory to the past. Both these tendencies have 
 been very clearly marked in the Church of England since 
 the great era of the Reformation. In the struggles con- 
 nected with the revision of the Prayer-Book, which lasted 
 for rather more than a century, the principle of one party 
 was to aim at a closer conformity to the model of the 
 continental Reformed Churches, that of the other to make 
 a review, after comparing the primitive Liturgies, hitherto 
 the acknowledged modes of Public Worship. According to 
 one point of view, the Church of Christ had only existed, 
 in the midst of the general corruption of the middle ages, 
 in a few communities of spiritually-minded believers ; ac- 
 cording to the other, it had had an unbroken continuous 
 existence in the visible Church, however marred by imper- 
 fections. 
 
 The Church of England, from the time of its re-organiza- 
 tion in the sixteenth century, with a wise and bold compre- 
 hension has recognised these two tendencies; and spite of 
 all the contemptuous insinuations of feeble and cowardly
 
 44 Past History and Present Duties of 
 
 compromise in so doing, has remained at once Catholic 
 and Protestant, holding fast both to Sacramental Grace 
 and Personal Faith, not allowing the Church to crush the 
 Reason by authority, nor the Individual to indulge the 
 disuniting licence of Sectarianism. It has endeavoured, 
 with whatever success, to combine Order and Freedom. 
 
 But it has not escaped the violence of internal contro- 
 versy: it is suffering from it acutely in our own day. Is 
 it not the province of a Faculty of Theology, in the Univer- 
 sity which, by long prescription and legislation is allied 
 with the National Church, to act the part of Moderator 
 in such disputes. To be trusted, to have real influence, 
 it ought inflexibly to keep aloof from any religious partisan- 
 ship, or identification with any party organizations within 
 the Church itself? It ought, if I may venture to speak 
 openly what I feel deeply, to lift up its voice, and call 
 attention to the comparative importance of subjects of 
 theological controversy; to try to induce men to abandon 
 questions whether a clergyman shall preach in a black 
 gown or a white surplice, or light candles on the altar, at 
 a time when men of culture in drawing-rooms are denying 
 the possibility of the very conception of Supernatural 
 Religion, and artisans in their shops and their clubs are 
 maintaining that, as a future life is entirely uncertain, 
 Secularism is the only rule of life for sensible men. It 
 makes one's heart sick to read the original letters of the 
 period of the Reformation, and notice how men were wrang- 
 ling over the Vestiarian question as a matter of a standing 
 or falling Church. One thinks how, if a truer estimate 
 of relative importance had been entertained, Ultramon- 
 tanism would never have assumed its vast proportions, and 
 Protestantism in France might not have been stamped out 
 by the Dragonnades of Louis XIV. We lament the bitter- 
 ness of the contest between Calvinism and Arminianism ; 
 but it was surely nobler that the Five Points at issue 
 should be such high themes as Predestination, Particular 
 Redemption, Free Will, Irresistible Grace, Final Perse- 
 verance, than that the Six Points to be retained at all 
 hazards, or to be forbidden by stringent law, should be,
 
 the Faculty of Theology in Oxford. 45 
 
 as is now proclaimed, Incense, Lights, Vestments, East- 
 ward Position, Wafer Bread, Mixed Chalice. 
 
 One great service which a Faculty of Theology might 
 render, would be by insisting on the need of the adoption 
 of the historical method in questions of interpretation of 
 Scripture, doctrine, and ceremonial. Take the interpre- 
 tation of Scripture: it is extremely desirable to ascertain 
 how the early Greek Fathers in particular understood the 
 New Testament ; they are witnesses of the primitive tradi- 
 tion; they were acquainted by vernacular use with the 
 language which they were explaining ; they may fairly be 
 expected to have known what it meant. Apply this rule. 
 "We constantly find now repeated an assertion that every 
 Scholar who can read his Greek Testament must know that 
 tovto 7T0ielTe, in the account of the institution of the Eu- 
 charist, means "Sacrifice this." If this be true, then S. 
 Chrysostom must have been a bad Greek Scholar; for in 
 his Homilies on the Gospels, and on the Epistle to the 
 Corinthians, he never makes the slightest reference to this 
 meaning. In the great controversy between the Churches 
 of England and Home, the appeal to history is of vital 
 importance. It is decisive in such questions as the theory 
 of the Sacrament of Penance, of Purgatory, of the Su- 
 premacy of the Roman See. A dispassionate historical sur- 
 vey of the growth of ceremonies will prove that much that 
 claims to be Catholic is only medieval. 
 
 A University might do much to promote the adoption 
 of the historical method in Theology on the literary side ; 
 there is scope for theological research of a most useful kind. 
 Nothing is more desirable than there should be good critical 
 editions of the Fathers ; they have been so tampered with 
 and interpolated for controversial purposes, that they need 
 elucidation by all the critical appliances of collation of MSS. 
 and quotations in contemporary writers, which are now open 
 to modern scholars. One result of our present plan of 
 making all who are on the foundations of Colleges take 
 immediately an active share in tuition, is the danger of little 
 leisure being left for study and research. It would redound 
 to the honour of Oxford, if a few men could render such
 
 46 Past History and Present Duties of 
 
 efficient aid in this patristic research as Mr. Philip Pusey 
 has done, in his edition of S. Cyril of Alexandria. We 
 shall never arrive at any satisfactory settlement of many of 
 our liturgical controversies, till we get revised editions of 
 the ancient Liturgies'. The MSS. on which the present 
 texts of the Greek Liturgies are based, are very few, and 
 comparatively late in date. For the "Western Liturgies 
 there is supposed to be much unedited material in the 
 French Libraries and Monasteries. This is an enterprise 
 of research well worthy of the attention of some young theo- 
 logians with literary tastes. And such investigation of 
 MSS. would need verification by a careful collection of the 
 references in early Christian writers to portions of the 
 Public Worship of the Church, after the manner of what 
 was done partially for S. Chrysostom by Bingham in his 
 " Ecclesiastical Antiquities." 
 
 Amidst much to discourage, there is one sign of hopeful- 
 ness in theological literature, and that is the revived study 
 of the original Scriptures. Germany, no doubt, has set 
 England the example of elaborate Commentaries upon the 
 several books of the Bible ; but England has followed the 
 lead, and added perhaps more sobriety of judgment. The 
 publication in our own time of such books as the Greek Tes- 
 taments of Dean Alford and Bishop Wordsworth, Dr. Pusey's 
 " Minor Prophets" and "Daniel," "The Speaker's Com- 
 mentary," Professor Lightfoot's " Pauline Epistles," are 
 a cheering proof that men are ready, when invited, to go 
 back to the fountain-head of Christian truth ; and these 
 books have found numerous students and readers. If we 
 will follow the guidance of Providence, it may be the privi- 
 lege of our generation to get a deeper insight into the 
 meaning and inexhaustible fulness of Scripture, and its 
 adaptation to the wants of mankind ; for, as the philoso- 
 phic Bishop Butler has reminded us, " It is not at all in- 
 credible that a book, which has been so long in the posses- 
 
 f This work had been partially begun by Edward Theodore Gibbons, 
 Student of Christ Church, and formerly Scholar of Exeter College, when it 
 was interrupted by his premature and lamented death, July 28, 1876.
 
 the Faculty of Theology in Oxford. 47 
 
 sion of mankind, should contain many truths as yet undis- 
 covered. Possibly it might be intended that events, as 
 they come to pass, should open, and ascertain the meaning 
 of several parts of Scripture g ." 
 
 4. Lastly, Theology in the University has a function to 
 discharge towards the world of literature and culture. — 
 It is impossible to shut our eyes to the fact, that Theology 
 occupies a very prominent place in the current literature of 
 the day. It is very unusual to take up a quarterly or 
 monthly periodical without finding in it an article on some 
 question more or less connected with Theology. All think- 
 ing men have something to say on the problems discussed — 
 sometimes with reverence, sometimes with ill-suppressed 
 contempt, sometimes with scornful hatred, sometimes with 
 sympathetic tenderness. Scientific men, literary men, as 
 well as professed divines, mingle in the fray. Why should 
 they not ? The grave problems at issue are " the things by 
 which we live." 
 
 Science cannot boast a uniformity of judgment and senti- 
 ment. Presidents of the British Association do not every 
 year hold exactly the same language on the relation of 
 Science to Theology. Some men of great note in the sci- 
 entific world are devout Christians ; others are avowed 
 Atheists. What shall be the attitude of Theologians? 
 First, let them appeal to men of Science to discuss the 
 questions at issue with a gravity and seriousness befitting 
 the unspeakable importance of the decision \ Let them en- 
 treat them not to use scorn and invective, and rash, impet- 
 uous assertions, if they think that the imperious necessities 
 of reason lead them to a denial of those supreme truths of 
 the existence of a Personal God, and the continuance of 
 Life after Death, which have for many Christian genera- 
 tions soothed the bed of suffering, and lightened the dark- 
 ness of death with a radiance not of earth. If we are con- 
 tent to admit the striking confession of Aristotle at the 
 beginning of his Ethics, that, in case private feeling and 
 
 8 Analogy, Pt. ii. ch. 3. 
 
 h See some admirable remarks on this head in a University Sermon by 
 Dean Church. M Human Life and its Conditions." Sermon III. (1878).
 
 48 Past History and Present Duties of 
 
 truth come into collision, it is a sacred duty to give the pre- 
 ference to truth, yet at least let us treat these private feelings 
 with tenderness. It is a terrible sacrifice to which Atheism 
 calls a Christian : it leaves life for him a hopeless blank. 
 Next, let theologians avoid the disastrous and mischievous 
 error of attributing evil motives to Scientific men, who 
 imagine that their conclusions are probably hostile to the 
 assertions of Theology. The sledge-hammer style of contro- 
 versy never has done any good, and never will do any good 
 in the world. When lavish abuse is poured upon scientific 
 men by theologians, or upon theologians by scientific men 
 (and both these habits are far too common), one calls to mind 
 the eloquent and noble words of Castellio, when, because he 
 could not agree with Calvin on the subjects of Predestina- 
 tion and Christ's descent into hell, he was assailed by him 
 with every term of reproach : " Non semper pendebit inter 
 latrones Christus : Besurget aliquando crucifixa Veritas \" 
 Theologians must have real sympathy. They must recog- 
 nise the fact, that there are grave intellectual difficulties 
 which perplex thinking men, and they must argue them 
 out patiently, calmly, and upon the strength of some ade- 
 quate acquaintance with the subjects in hand. Nothing is 
 more offensive than to hear a young curate, who knows 
 absolutely nothing of either the elementary facts, or the 
 higher philosophy of Science, get up in the pulpit and 
 assail modern Science by unverified assertions and ignorant 
 abuse : he only alienates the more sensible laity. There 
 are not wanting for our imitation noble examples of the 
 true tone of controversy. They will recognise this who 
 have ever read Professor Westcott's " Discussion on the Rela- 
 tion of Christianity to the Positive Philosophy," or some of 
 the papers of Archdeacon Reichel read at Church Con- 
 gresses k . If Theology will begin with such a moral equip- 
 ment, she need not fear to advance boldly, and without risk 
 
 1 Quoted in Laurence's " Bampton Lectures;" Notes, p. 244. 
 
 k I might have added to these examples, if it had not been that I might 
 have been suspected of being prejudiced by a life-long personal friendship, 
 Mr. Eaton's "Bampton Lectures" (1872), on " The Permanence of Chris- 
 tianity."
 
 the Faculty of Theology in Oxford. 49 
 
 of defeat, into the discussion of such problems as have been 
 reserved for our generation — Evolution, Natural Selection, 
 the Persistence of Force, the Immutability of Laws. It 
 will be the noblest achievement of our age if a School of 
 Theologians could be found who would effect the reconcilia- 
 tion of Science and Theology, which, by faults of temper 
 and intellect on both sides, have been made foes instead 
 of friends. 
 
 Literary men, too, discuss freely the critical questions 
 of Theology. In the opinion of one popular writer, who 
 bears, both in his own right and in his hereditary right, 
 a great Oxford reputation, Literature has dissolved Dogma. 
 "The old notions about the books of the Bible must be aban- 
 doned. Modern criticism is so keen-sighted and intuitive 
 in its analysis, that it can detect the scanty original ele- 
 ments of the Gospels, and reject the remainder, as only the 
 very questionable assertions of some later redactors; no- 
 body till our day has ever rightly understood the meaning 
 of St. Paul when he spoke of redemption or righteousness ; 
 the Israelites did not believe in a Personal Good, but in 
 a something not ourselves making for righteousness ; the 
 secret of Jesus has now at length been discovered." Theo- 
 logians, I imagine, are not disposed to accept these results, 
 because they seem to them to lack what modern inductive 
 science demands as a criticism of truth, — verification. But 
 they ought to be prepared to admit that many popular 
 notions of the Books of the Bible have been vague and 
 erroneous. They ought to allow more weight than they 
 have done in former times to that peculiarity of the Bible, 
 which is nowhere more pointedly or briefly intimated than 
 in the first verse of the Epistle to the Hebrews, that it was 
 written, 7ro\vfi€pm icai iroXvTpoircQSy " in many parts and 
 in many modes ;" they must discuss the literary problems 
 connected with the origin of the Gospels, and of the Epistles 
 of the New Testament, as well as those affecting the Old Tes- 
 tament. Theologians, at least those of the Church of England, 
 are not, as is sometimes cast in their teeth, precluded by 
 their very position from entering upon most of these ques- 
 t' »ns. No Creed or Article binds them to hold as de fide
 
 50 Past History and Present Duties of 
 
 that Isaiah or Zechariah was all written by one prophetical 
 author, or that the Acts of the Apostles does not embody 
 prior documents, or that the Epistle to the Hebrews was 
 written by St. Paul, or that an inspired author cannot have 
 made a mistake in history. These literary problems, es- 
 pecially those connected with the New Testament, press 
 for discussion and laborious investigation. All honour to 
 living theologians, like Professor Lightfoot, of Cambridge, 
 and Mr. Sanday, of Oxford and Durham, who have devoted 
 hard and minute study to these obscure researches, where 
 the data are so few, and the evidence so intricate. They 
 are not to be tabooed and excommunicated by those whose 
 minds are happily not troubled by the raising of such prob- 
 lems, or by those who endow their own traditional view 
 of the Bible with the attribute of infallibility. In the light 
 of all the fresh fragments of early Christian literature which 
 have been discovered, and of the elaborate collations of MSS. 
 by scholars, that may be true of Biblical Exegesis which 
 Lord Bacon said originally of all Science : — 
 
 " Artem inveniendi cum inventis ipsis adolescere posse statuere 
 debemus V 
 
 Theology has a great and glorious opportunity before it, 
 if it can convince this generation that the grand truths of 
 which it treats are not barren speculations, belonging only 
 to the curious intellect, or to antiquarian research, but that 
 they lie at the very foundation of the moral life of man. 
 Theology may lift men up into " an ampler sether, a diviner 
 air," if it succeeds in teaching them that the supreme ques- 
 tions of its investigations are not controversies of Church 
 government as between Episcopacy and Presbyterianism, 
 nor of Church ceremonial, nor of the limits of the civil and 
 ecclesiastical powers, nor of the exact relations of faith and 
 works, nor of the right definitions of conversion and elec- 
 tion ; but rather the belief that we men have a Father in 
 heaven, and a Divinely-human Saviour and object of wor- 
 ship in Jesus Christ, and a sanctifying presence within us 
 in the Holy Spirit. Theology will vindicate its just claims 
 1 Nov. Org., i. 130.
 
 the Faculty of Theology in Oxford, 51 
 
 to respect alike from the clergyman and the layman, if it 
 shews itself capable of being translated into life and prac- 
 tice ; if it interprets for us the facts of the moral universe ; 
 if, by its light, it can rescue us from the utter darkness of 
 a despairing pessimism ; if, rejecting the false adage that 
 ignorance is the mother of devotion, it can assert that it is 
 the truth and the truth only which can make men at once 
 free and holy; if it can shew itself as the parent of a religion 
 which is manly, truthful, pure, and fearless, equal to bear 
 the strain of life as well as of death. If this high enterprise 
 can be achieved, then, notwithstanding the vast multiplicity 
 of the new Sciences which modern civilization has called 
 into existence, Theology may still assert her proud and 
 ancient title as the Queen and Mistress of all the Sciences. 
 
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